How to be a woman

Caitlin Moran, author of How to be a Woman, is renowned as a comedic feminist. In laymen’s term, she’s the British Tina Fey. She often says that her insights give a fresh and “in your face” idea of what feminism actually means. But is her approach to feminism what society really needs to make the feminist movement evolve and move forward? The Feminist Texan says “No!”

Many topics Moran brings up in her book are very important to the feminist movement. These topics are the basic ones that most people know and often bring up, such as openness with the truth about abortion and the media’s distorted version of women.

Moran does get a bit away from every day feminism by quoting a well-known (and often times a bit strange) feminist named Germaine Greer. Though Greer is very interesting, when Moran uses ideas such as having a taste of your own menstrual blood, I’m sure it is easy to see how many people are lost and jump off of that bandwagon. She also puts down women who will not label themselves as a feminist even though the majority of them do have feminist values. Her idea of a feminist is best described from this description:

“Here is the quick way of working out if you’re a feminist. Put your hand in your underpants.

a. Do you have a vagina? and
b. Do you want to be in charge of it?

If you said “yes” to both, then congratulations! You’re a feminist.”

Another bad point to Moran’s approach to feminism is shown in her somewhat “White Privilege” attitude. This is seen in her response to an interview that she had with Lena Dunham, creater of the show “Girls.” Moran was interviewed by Bitch Magazine but the interview was killed and never ran in the magazine.

Moran was questioned on Twitter if she had asked Dunham about the lack of women of color depicted in the show. The response that Moran gave was definitely inappropriate and made her outlook definitely have a white privileged appeal. Her response: “Nope. I literally couldn’t give a shit aboutit [sic].”

Though I do find Moran quite interesting, I definitely can see where The Feminist Texan is coming from. For an introduction to feminism, I, personally, find Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti to be much more applicable to people’s lives and it is sassy and in your face, but it is truthful and gives good explanations to feminist topics and problems.