How to Be a Woman
Caitlin Moran, 2012
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062124296
Summary
Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them?
Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from the riot of adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother. With rapier wit, Moran slices right to the truth—whether it's about the workplace, strip clubs, love, fat, abortion, popular entertainment, or children—to jump-start a new conversation about feminism. With humor, insight, and verve, How To Be a Woman lays bare the reasons why female rights and empowerment are essential issues not only for women today but also for society itself. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 5, 1975
• Where—Brighton, UK
• Education—N/A
• Awards—British Press Award (3), Irish Book Award
• Currently—N/A
Caitlin Moran is a British broadcaster, TV critic and columnist at The Times, where she writes three columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, a TV review column, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch". Moran is British Press Awards (BPA) Columnist of the Year for 2010, and both BPA Critic of the Year 2011, and Interviewer of the Year 2011.
Early Life and Career
Moran's Irish-Catholic father is a one-time "drummer and psychedelic rock pioneer" who became "confined to the sofa by osteoarthritis". She is the eldest of 8 children and has four sisters and three brothers. She was born in Brighton and then lived in a three bedroom council house in Wolverhampton with her parents and siblings. She attended Springdale Junior School and was then educated at home from the age of 11, having attended secondary school for only three weeks.
At the age of 13 in October 1988 she won a Dillons young readers' contest for an essay on Why I Like Books and was awarded £250 of book tokens. At the age of 15, she won The Observer's Young Reporter of the Year. She began her career as a journalist for Melody Maker, the weekly music publication, at the age of 16. Moran also wrote a novel called The Chronicles of Narmo at the age of 16, inspired by having been part of a home-schooled family. In 1992 she launched her television career, hosting the Channel 4 music show Naked City, which ran for two series and featured a number of then up-and-coming British bands such as Blur, Manic Street Preachers, and the Boo Radleys. Johnny Vaughan co-presented with her on Naked City.
In December 1999, Moran married The Times rock critic Peter Paphides in Coventry and the couple have two daughters born in 2001 and 2003.
In 2011, Harper Perennial published Moran's book How To Be a Woman in the UK. As of July 2012, it had sold over 400,000 copies in 16 countries.
On 13 July 2012, Moran became a Fellow of Aberystwyth University. (Adapted from Wikipeida.)
Book Reviews
...Remind[s] us, in this era of manufactured outrage, what a truly great rant should look like: rude, energetic and spinning off now and then into jubilant absurdity…None of what she says is new, and it's written in a style that, inevitably, tips here and there from larky into dashed off…But this is to miss the point. The book is so joyful, so free of the piety that has felled many a worthier title and—this is its real value—so liable to find readers who in a million years wouldn't identify with Susan Faludi, that it feels like a rare case of winning the argument…. How to Be a Woman is a glorious, timely stand against sexism so ingrained we barely even notice it.
Emma Brockes - New York Times
Moran’s frank wit is appealing.
The New Yorker
Totally brilliant.
Independent (UK)
Scathingly funny…. Moran makes us think about femininity and feminism, and whether you agree or not, she’s fascinating.
People
Bravely and brilliantly weaves personal anecdotes and cutting insight into a book that is at once instructional, confessional, and a call for change…. Moran shifts effortlessly between her own hilarious experiences and larger questions about women’s place in the modern world.
Interview Magazine
The UK’s answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one.
Marie Claire
Half-memoir, half-polemic, and entirely necessary.
Elle (UK)
Part memoir, part postmodern feminist rant, this award-winning British TV critic and celebrity writer brings her ingeniously funny views to the States. Moran’s journey into womanhood begins on her 13th birthday when boys throw rocks at her 182-pound body, and her only friend, her sister Caz, hands her a homemade card reminding her to please turn 18 or die soon so Caz can inherit her bedroom. Always resourceful—as the eldest of eight children from Wolverhampton—the author embarrasses herself often enough to become an authority on how to masturbate; name one’s breasts; and forgo a Brazilian bikini wax. She doesn’t politicize feminism; she humanizes it. Everyone, she writes, is automatically an F-word if they own a vagina and want “to be in charge of it.” Empowering women is as easy as saying—without reservation—the word “fat” and filling our handbags with necessities like a safety pin, biscuit, and “something that can absorb huge amounts of liquid.” Beneath the laugh-out-loud humor is genuine insight about the blessings of having—or not having—children. With brutal honesty, she explains why she chose to have an abortion after birthing two healthy daughters with her longtime husband, Pete. Her story is as touching as it is timely. In her brilliant, original voice, Moran successfully entertains and enlightens her audience with hard-won wisdom and wit.
Publishers Weekly
A spirited memoir/manifesto that dares readers to "stand on a chair and shout ‘I AM A FEMINIST.' " With equal amounts snarky brio and righteous anger, Moran brings the discussion of contemporary women's rights down from the ivory tower and into the mainstream.... While some American readers may struggle with the British references and slang, they will find their efforts rewarded. Rapturously irreverent, this book should kick-start plenty of useful discussions.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart).
1. What do you think of the premise of How To Be a Woman—that the blacksliding of feminist principles has a negative impact on women and society as a whole? Does Moran's argument resonate with you? Or is the author exaggerating simply to make a point?
2. Talk about the specific ways in which Moran sees the current trend toward anti-feminism.
3. Why has Moran written this book? What does she envision for her daughters? If you have daughters...what do you envision for them?
4. Moran cites a poll showing that only 29% of American women consider themselves feminists. Why do contemporary women disavow feminism? Do you consider yourself a feminist? If you have daughters, do they?
5. What do today's younger women think feminism was—and is—about? Are they mistaken, or correct, in their dismissal of the movement's precepts?
6. How would you describe the book's tone—angry, snarky, funny, pious, joyful?
7. Moran asks: "Do you have a vagina? Do you want to be in charge of it?" If you say "Yes" to both, "Congratulations! You're a feminist.'" What do you think of her question...and her conclusion? Doesn't her conclusion end up supporting one of the very arguments she rejects—that strip clubs actually empower to women because they're taking charge of their sexuality?
8. What does Moran suggest about the pioneers of feminism back in the 1960s, particularly Germaine Greer?
9. Moran also takes some decidedly "unfeminist" views, particularly on abortion. Talk about her abortion stance—do you agree or disagree? Did you find the account of her abortion overly graphic?
10. Moran tells us that "when a woman says 'I have nothing to wear!' what she really means is, "There's nothing here for who I'm supposed to be today.'" She says a woman's wardrobe is more a matter of duty than personal taste. Do you agree? Or not.
11. What do you feel about women's fashion—stilletos? Why do women wear them—for themselves or for men?
12. Overall, what do you think of Moran's book? Has it altered your ideas of feminism?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)