1970: Feminists storm Miss World.
Now: Caitlin Moran rewrites The Female Eunuch from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller.
There's never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain...
Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should you get Botox? Do men secretly hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you're going to have a baby?
Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in How To Be A Woman - following her from her terrible 13th birthday ('I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me') through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, Topshop, motherhood and beyond.
I was given this book as a gift last year and took it with me on a train shortly afterwards (wow that was a supremely exciting opening sentence...). Read it last year but felt it was time for a new book review, so there. Loved every minute of Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman. She's not afraid to use the word 'feminist', a phrase that's unnecessarily become such a dirty word in modern vocab, and she brings it back to what being a feminist is all about. There's no chapters on bra burning or poking pins in effigies of men - being a feminist is just about wanting women to be treated equally and I'm pretty sure a lot of men want that too... feminism isn't just for girls!
For anyone who hasn't read Caitlin Moran's column in the Times, here's an insight into her mind and style. Follow her on twitter if you're not already doing so, because she's hilarious. Reading her tweets about X Factor is honestly more fun than the program itself... Anyway, the book. It's really very funny and has plenty of those satisfying 'oh me too!' moments that make you feel all glowy and gooey while belting out regular cackles into a packed rush-hour train carriage... thank god it wasn't the quiet carriage. Plenty of cringe material where you find yourself holding your book up close to your face so that no one can read it... (not even yourself it turns out... funny that...).
It is funny but it's also really very touching. Caitlin Moran has this wonderful way of making you feel included. Through her writing, she lets you in and somehow you feel that she'd understand all your problems. She tackles some really very serious issues and doesn't laugh them away as you might expect and yet, she doesn't depress you and make you feel terrible. She's a positive voice and you could do worse than spend 4 hours on a train reading what she has to say.
Pick it up! 8.5/10
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