BOOK REVIEW: ‘How to be a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran
What you need to know:
Writing those last two examples has made me want to read it over again.
It is a hilarious guide on and to womanhood, through someone else’s journey, with gems of information that you can use for yourself, and if you don’t ascribe to them, at least laugh about.
This book, published in 2011 and still glaringly relevant today, changed my life! Told in classic Moran fashion (she’s been writing for about 2 decades) this book covers all the questions a modern day woman would have about why things are the way they are. For example, why are so many people still pretending that they can walk in heels?
The unwearability of high heels is self-evidently all around us – coming to a head at the average wedding reception, a uniformly high-heeled occasion. In our minds, we see it as a serene and elegant gathering of women in their finest. One of the big chances of the year to pretend you’re at the Oscars, in your stilettos. In actuality, of course, it looks like the annual AGM of the Tina Turner Impressionist Union – women staggering around in unaccustomed verticality; foot-flesh spilling out over tight, unkind satin; toes going numb for days afterwards.
WHY DO WE SHAVE?
I dare say there are a wealth of women who feel exactly like this. She covers so many topics, from having children, to not having children, to sexism, of course, to shaving and why we do it (why DO we do it?? Read below…)
And all of these hair dilemmas – these decisions that you must make with your follicles, have made pubic hair now the most political charged arena. That palm-sized triangle has come to be top-loaded with more psychosexual inference than marital status and income combined. When I was 17, the idea of waxing your bikini line was for porn models only. Whilst some use the euphemism ‘Brazilian’ to describe this state of affairs, I prefer to call it what it is – ‘a ruinously high-maintenance, itchy, cold-looking child’s fanny.’
Writing those last two examples has made me want to read it over again. It is a hilarious guide on and to womanhood, through someone else’s journey, with gems of information that you can use for yourself, and if you don’t ascribe to them, at least laugh about.