November review for the Eclectic Reader's Book Challenge 2013: How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran, 2011. [Humor category]
How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran has been on my radar for a while, and not only because she spells her name like I do (but pronounces it differently. cuz she's british). I have been interested in her comparison to Tina Fey, her cavalier and funny choice of title, and just her general super-coolness that I really really want to find the secret recipe for. I mean, she's worked as a writer basically since she could legally collect her own paycheck, and that is something I have sort of always been afraid of--even though it's the thing I want most in this world. So when I had the idea to pick her first book for the humor category in my year-long romp through literature, I jumped at the chance.
This memoir-slash-manifesto was everything I thought it was going to be and more. Every self-deprecating chapter ("Chapter 3: I Don't Know What to Call My Breasts!" or "Chapter 7: I Encounter Some Sexism!") is a mixture of funny anecdotes from Moran's childhood which effortlessly transition into greater musings about the chapter's relation to feminism or the female place in the world at large. While her tone is pretty flippant at times, with LOTS OF CAPS LOCK, she manages to sound incredibly down-to-earth and friendly at the same time. She has this new idea about not a new way to think about feminism, not as another wave but rather as an incoming tide--because around the fifth wave of anything it doesn't appear to be individual anything anymore, and that's when things get interesting. She talks about sweating the small stuff, making a big deal about the minuscule things because one broken window going unfixed will lead to more and more vandals and squatters and all kinds of ill-mannered folk wreaking havoc on what was once just a nice building quietly minding its own business. A lot of things she says I agree with, a lot of the gray areas she points out. I read an article recently about women dealing with misogynist culture and being told to just lighten up' and smiling but inside feeling like "if you lighten up anymore you're going to float the fuck away." Caitlin Moran has a lot of the same feelings as the author of said article, Roxane Gay, does, and this sort of call to arms for women, this assurance that fighting against this shit doesn't make you a militant freak or a social outcast, is what really drew me home into this book.
At one point, Moran talks about strong female role models (Chapter 14), mostly recording artists--because that is where she got her start--and mentions a whole slew of them, including Lily Allen ("a gobby ingénue!"). Now, I was reading this book at about the time the whole "Hard Out Here"/Lily Allen-is-a-racist fiasco. 2013 was a really weird year for women, what with the vomit-inducing Robin Thicke and the parodies and the backlash, and the backlash on the backlash, women yelling at other women for speaking their mind even if they fuck up in the way that they do so, and so I was interested in reading a wonderfully belligerent feminist's attempt to make sense of it, and I continued to read Moran's writings after the book was over. I've always thought the idea of intent was a very tricky one, and we talked about it a lot in my lit classes, but I've never really tried to apply it to pop culture or artists making their waves in the present. I think one of the obsessions with authorial intent is that most of the time, the author can't be reached for comment and it allows for endless debate without actually reaching any meaningful conclusion. The thing about intent with living artists is that it gets messy, with revisions and anger and takesie-backsies and she-said-she-said. But that is the difference between the study of the past and the study of the present. And even though it hurts my head (and my OCD) a little bit to be a part of it, I love immersing myself in the mess. I read every article about Lily Allen and her anthem, trying to figure out how I felt versus how I should feel or am allowed to feel. The easiest way for me to line everything up, I felt, was to find something that took a few steps back and spend a moment reflecting upon the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.
And that brings me to speak in terms of the category this month, humor. In all honesty, this book fits "memoir" much more than Olivia Munn's book did, and I think that is mostly because Moran bared more of her soul and allowed us to be more vulnerable with her. But I read it for "humor," why? No bookstore or website I saw ever put it under a "humor" banner, not technically, but she's so funny and these are my rules so whatever. It might be because she's not afraid to denigrate herself, to address her own flaws. She admits freely that humans are inherently imperfect and once you can look back on that without shame, you can see the humor in life.
I loved this book. I found a lot of things Caitlin Moran writes about resonate with me. As a writer, as a woman, as someone with a brain. I wasn't being preached at, I was a co-conspirator, almost. And that's all anyone really wants, I think. To be taught alongside someone else, rather than at the expense of someone else. If this year has taught me anything, it has taught me that.
Other reviews I enjoyed:
