Shelving: How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

Amazon.com

I wish Caitlin Moran hadn't made the unfortunate observation that a "a quick way of working out if you're a feminist. [is to] Put your hand in your underpants and a) do you have a vagina, and b) do you want to be in charge of it." because her book, How to Be a Woman is really funny. She's a cheerleader for the cause, and her cool older sister vibe makes her book -- part memoir, part advice column --  a pleasure to read, but it's a level-101 mistake to assume all women have vaginas, all feminists are women, and all people with vaginas should identify as feminists. I also think she has some not-all-that-nuanced ideas about class, which is dishearteningly common  for feminists of my generation.

Then there's the matter of her casual use of the words "tr*nny" and the r-word, which she addressed in a recent interview with The Hairpin: 

The word "tranny" was interesting because a load of people really jumped on that. Three of my friends are transvestites, and we had always used the word "tranny" to mean transvestite, not transsexual, and didn't know that that was a massive issue. Initially I was kind of equally tetchy, like, 'There's no greater friend of the gays! How dare you?” But after the misunderstanding that happened on Twitter, I researched lots and came across the word "cis" which I'd never come across before, and again it comes back to the idea of normality, so that educated me and that's fantastic, that's why it's brilliant that Twitter's there. It educated me about "cis" and "tranny" and "trans" in a way that I have educated people about feminism, so it was all very useful.

Which makes it all the more frustrating because I really enjoy her writing. Some of the highlights:

She writes honestly and without shame about her abortion -- or just about abortion in general. There's an unspoken rule that abortion is supposed to be the hardest decision one will ever have to make, and only happens in dire circumstances, which simply isn't true for a lot of women, but that shame is always there. We need more women to talk openly, even nonchalantly, about theirs.

I love her fashion "advice." Leopard print is so a neutral.

She writes both about being a mother, and why one should opt out of having children. As a childless woman myself (and I'm okay with this word. I actually hate the word childfree as it implies I should be running barefoot through fields of daisies unencumbered by offspring. I don't have kids, but my life is anything but free.), and one of *cough* advancing age, I'm not sure how I feel about having my decision explained to me by someone with kids. Validation is nice, but I'd rather read about the experiences of other non-moms.

Overall, this is some big, serious, feminist tome -- and it shouldn't be. It also shouldn't be taken as some sort of guide to feminism, because that book, I think, is impossible to write solo.