WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.919 Hello and welcome back to another Deep Dive. 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:04.660 Today we are doing something a little bit different. 00:00:04.820 --> 00:00:06.679 Yeah, quite different actually. Right, because 00:00:06.679 --> 00:00:09.460 usually when we talk about political manifestos 00:00:09.460 --> 00:00:12.599 or heavy social commentary, we are bracing ourselves 00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:16.059 for something pretty dry, something heavy, maybe 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:17.899 even a little bit angry. Oh, absolutely. You 00:00:17.899 --> 00:00:20.980 expect a textbook. Exactly. But today we're looking 00:00:20.980 --> 00:00:24.899 at a book that tried to change the world by making 00:00:24.899 --> 00:00:28.460 jokes about Brazilian waxes and Lady Gaga. We're 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:32.219 digging into Caitlin Moran's 2011 memoir manifesto, 00:00:32.219 --> 00:00:34.719 How to Be a Woman. It really is a fascinating 00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:37.079 piece of work. And to understand this book and 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:39.280 the deep dive we've done into the Wikipedia entry 00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:41.880 and its reception, you really have to transport 00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:44.200 yourself back to 2011. It was a very different 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:47.039 landscape. It was. The conversation around gender 00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:49.859 just wasn't what it is today. And into that space, 00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:52.659 Moran drops this book that's half memoir, half 00:00:52.659 --> 00:00:55.840 polemic, and just entirely unfiltered. I remember 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:58.020 seeing this book. Literally everywhere when it 00:00:58.020 --> 00:00:59.640 came out. It wasn't just in bookstores. It was 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:01.500 in grocery stores, airports. People were reading 00:01:01.500 --> 00:01:04.140 it on the subway. The reach was massive. Our 00:01:04.140 --> 00:01:06.819 sources confirm it sold over a million copies. 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:10.040 A million copies, which is a staggering number 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:12.900 for a book that is fundamentally about feminism. 00:01:13.629 --> 00:01:16.150 Because let's be honest, usually that section 00:01:16.150 --> 00:01:18.890 of the bookstore is a bit quieter. It is. And 00:01:18.890 --> 00:01:21.150 that massive success is really the core of our 00:01:21.150 --> 00:01:24.250 mission today. We are looking at how Moran wanted 00:01:24.250 --> 00:01:26.930 to completely rebrand feminism. She felt it had 00:01:26.930 --> 00:01:29.189 an image problem. An image problem, right. Like 00:01:29.189 --> 00:01:31.370 people saw it as this radical man -hating thing. 00:01:31.450 --> 00:01:33.909 Exactly. She thought the public saw feminists 00:01:33.909 --> 00:01:36.810 as radical or just bogged down in academic theory 00:01:36.810 --> 00:01:39.209 that didn't apply to everyday life. Her goal 00:01:39.209 --> 00:01:41.950 was to make it approachable. So basically using 00:01:41.950 --> 00:01:44.739 humor as a weapon. to take the scary out of the 00:01:44.739 --> 00:01:47.379 movement. That is exactly it. But as our sources 00:01:47.379 --> 00:01:51.019 show, that specific method using comedy sparked 00:01:51.019 --> 00:01:54.159 this intense devotion from readers, but also 00:01:54.159 --> 00:01:55.959 some really sharp criticism from established 00:01:55.959 --> 00:01:58.159 figures. Yeah, the classic tension between being 00:01:58.159 --> 00:02:00.959 popular and being rigorously right. So let's 00:02:00.959 --> 00:02:03.120 start with the book itself. The title is Bold, 00:02:03.340 --> 00:02:05.540 How to Be a Woman. It sounds like an instruction 00:02:05.540 --> 00:02:07.579 manual. It does sound like you're assembling 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:10.080 a piece of furniture or something. Right. Congratulations 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:13.030 on your purchase of a woman. But structurally, 00:02:13.069 --> 00:02:15.129 it's a genre bender, isn't it? It really is. 00:02:15.169 --> 00:02:17.770 Technically, it's a memoir. It documents Moran's 00:02:17.770 --> 00:02:20.169 life from her teenage years growing up in a working 00:02:20.169 --> 00:02:22.810 -class family in Wolverhampton right up to her 00:02:22.810 --> 00:02:25.770 mid -30s. But she doesn't just tell her life 00:02:25.770 --> 00:02:29.629 story. No, she uses her life as a sort of framework 00:02:29.629 --> 00:02:32.949 to hang these... heavy political arguments on. 00:02:33.050 --> 00:02:35.629 It's a very strategic approach. Looking at the 00:02:35.629 --> 00:02:39.050 specific topics in our notes, it is wildly eclectic. 00:02:39.050 --> 00:02:41.289 I mean, she goes from puberty to marriage to 00:02:41.289 --> 00:02:44.349 abortion to and this one stood out to me naming. 00:02:44.939 --> 00:02:47.020 Body parts. Yeah, the naming body parts section 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:49.520 is a great example of her strategy. The sources 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:52.479 point out her heavy reliance on self -deprecating 00:02:52.479 --> 00:02:55.240 humor. The Trojan horse method. Precisely. There's 00:02:55.240 --> 00:02:57.500 this great quote from an NPR interview she did 00:02:57.500 --> 00:03:00.099 where she explains the why behind this. She says, 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:02.240 and I quote, it's kind of hard to argue with 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:04.159 someone who's making you laugh. Which makes a 00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:05.919 lot of sense on a psychological level. If you're 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:08.969 laughing, your guard is down. Exactly. You aren't 00:03:08.969 --> 00:03:11.389 defensive. She uses personal embarrassment to 00:03:11.389 --> 00:03:13.569 disarm the reader. She talks about things that 00:03:13.569 --> 00:03:16.050 are usually frouted in shame and just makes them 00:03:16.050 --> 00:03:18.210 ridiculous. So going back to the naming body 00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:22.210 parts thing, on the surface, giving funny names 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:25.189 to female anatomy sounds like a stand -up comedy 00:03:25.189 --> 00:03:27.669 bit. But is there actual theory behind that? 00:03:28.189 --> 00:03:31.469 There is. She argues that because society often 00:03:31.469 --> 00:03:34.050 lacks casual, comfortable language for female 00:03:34.050 --> 00:03:36.870 anatomy, women lack ownership of it. It becomes 00:03:36.870 --> 00:03:39.870 this clinical or overly sexualized thing. Oh, 00:03:39.889 --> 00:03:42.330 I see. So by using silly, personalized names, 00:03:42.509 --> 00:03:44.409 she's trying to reclaim that territory. Right. 00:03:44.550 --> 00:03:47.090 It's a linguistic land grab. She disarms you 00:03:47.090 --> 00:03:49.050 with a joke. And before you know it, you're digesting 00:03:49.050 --> 00:03:51.889 feminist theory about bodily autonomy. OK, that 00:03:51.889 --> 00:03:53.669 makes sense for the lighter stuff. Yeah. But 00:03:53.669 --> 00:03:56.289 she tackles much heavier topics, too. Her own 00:03:56.289 --> 00:03:58.689 experience with abortion, for example. Yes, and 00:03:58.689 --> 00:04:01.629 that is where the humor strategy really gets 00:04:01.629 --> 00:04:03.990 put to the test. She writes about her abortion 00:04:03.990 --> 00:04:06.189 not as a tragedy, but just as something that 00:04:06.189 --> 00:04:08.009 happened. Right, breaking the stigma that says 00:04:08.009 --> 00:04:10.650 it must always be this traumatic, somber event. 00:04:10.969 --> 00:04:13.430 Exactly. She treats it with a casualness that 00:04:13.430 --> 00:04:15.229 was actually quite shocking to a lot of people 00:04:15.229 --> 00:04:17.610 at the time. She's normalizing the experience 00:04:17.610 --> 00:04:20.550 through tone. By refusing to be serious about 00:04:20.550 --> 00:04:23.490 it, she refuses to let it define her as a tragedy. 00:04:23.649 --> 00:04:26.470 That's the mechanism, yes. It's incredibly effective 00:04:26.470 --> 00:04:29.050 for some readers, but as we'll see with the critical 00:04:29.050 --> 00:04:32.009 reception, treating heavy ideology with casual 00:04:32.009 --> 00:04:34.410 humor doesn't work for everyone. It definitely 00:04:34.410 --> 00:04:37.230 ruffled some feathers. But before we get to the 00:04:37.230 --> 00:04:39.009 pushback, let's talk about the core argument 00:04:39.009 --> 00:04:42.610 she makes, redefining the F word. Feminism. Right. 00:04:42.810 --> 00:04:45.709 Because in 2011, the word feminist was kind of 00:04:45.709 --> 00:04:48.569 out of fashion. You had pop stars actively saying, 00:04:48.689 --> 00:04:50.949 I'm not a feminist, I love men in interviews. 00:04:51.189 --> 00:04:53.740 It was deeply misunderstood. The prevailing stereotype 00:04:53.740 --> 00:04:56.160 she was fighting was the joyless, strident man 00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:58.480 -hater in dungarees who just wants to ban fun. 00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:01.040 So she tries to smash that stereotype. Yeah. 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:03.959 And her central thesis, the way she defines who 00:05:03.959 --> 00:05:06.740 is a feminist, is so simple it almost feels like 00:05:06.740 --> 00:05:09.540 a trap. It is a binary choice in her eyes. The 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:11.800 sources highlight this specific test she gives 00:05:11.800 --> 00:05:14.339 the reader. Right. The test is basically, do 00:05:14.339 --> 00:05:17.519 you have a vagina? And do you want to be in charge 00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:19.649 of it? That's it. If you answer yes, congratulations, 00:05:20.170 --> 00:05:22.990 you're a feminist. It's so blunt. It is. She 00:05:22.990 --> 00:05:25.509 argues that all women are inherently feminist 00:05:25.509 --> 00:05:28.110 unless they actively reject the notion of personal 00:05:28.110 --> 00:05:29.949 freedom. Which shifts the narrative entirely. 00:05:30.430 --> 00:05:32.949 She's taking the fear out of the label for the 00:05:32.949 --> 00:05:35.709 reader. Exactly. She's moving the public perception 00:05:35.709 --> 00:05:39.550 away from radical man -haters toward a much simpler 00:05:39.550 --> 00:05:42.800 definition. advocates for true equality. It's 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:44.699 that aha moment for the reader. You don't have 00:05:44.699 --> 00:05:47.839 to read dense academic texts or go to protests 00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:50.899 to claim the word. It's just basic agency. Right. 00:05:51.139 --> 00:05:53.459 But it also leads us to one of the most high 00:05:53.459 --> 00:05:55.839 concept ideas in the book, which builds off this 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:59.060 new simplified definition. The fifth wave. Yes. 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:02.079 Moran's call for a fifth wave of feminism. Let's 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:03.759 unpack that because we know about the previous 00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:07.220 waves, suffrage, workplace rights, intersectionality. 00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:10.089 How does she define the fifth wave? The methodology 00:06:10.089 --> 00:06:12.430 is completely different. It's not about marching 00:06:12.430 --> 00:06:16.310 or shouting. She argues that women have internalized 00:06:16.310 --> 00:06:19.810 the, and this is her phrasing, awkwardness, disconnect 00:06:19.810 --> 00:06:22.230 and bullshit of modern womanhood. The bullshit, 00:06:22.329 --> 00:06:24.990 the impossible beauty standards, the mental load, 00:06:25.209 --> 00:06:28.290 all the subtle everyday stuff. Exactly. And her 00:06:28.290 --> 00:06:31.230 tactic for dealing with this isn't anger. Right. 00:06:31.290 --> 00:06:32.970 We have the key quote for this from the sources. 00:06:33.149 --> 00:06:35.790 She says the solution is, quote, simply pointing 00:06:35.790 --> 00:06:40.420 at it and going H .A. instead. A .J. in Kappa 00:06:40.420 --> 00:06:43.120 letters. Moining and laughing. Yes. Ridicule 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:46.040 as a tool for dismantling patriarchal norms rather 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:48.639 than just using anger. Which connects perfectly 00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:51.480 back to her humor strategy. If you laugh at the 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:54.019 expectation to wear high heels, it loses its 00:06:54.019 --> 00:06:55.920 power over you. You're removing the authority 00:06:55.920 --> 00:06:58.620 of the oppressor by making them ridiculous. It's 00:06:58.620 --> 00:07:00.399 an internal revolution. It's a very appealing 00:07:00.399 --> 00:07:02.899 idea. Just laugh it off and be free. Yeah. But 00:07:02.899 --> 00:07:04.939 that brings us to the critical reception, because 00:07:04.939 --> 00:07:06.819 not everyone thought pointing and laughing was 00:07:06.819 --> 00:07:08.819 enough of a strategy. No, they certainly did 00:07:08.819 --> 00:07:10.360 not, though we should start with the praise, 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:13.160 because the book was a massive critical success 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:16.319 initially. It really was. Our sources show it 00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:18.660 won Book of the Year at the Galaxy National Book 00:07:18.660 --> 00:07:21.870 Awards in 2011. And the reviews from major outlets 00:07:21.870 --> 00:07:24.730 were glowing. Yeah. NPR compared her to the late 00:07:24.730 --> 00:07:27.850 Nora Ephron. Slate described her as intellectual, 00:07:28.230 --> 00:07:30.529 rebel and goofball. And The New York Times called 00:07:30.529 --> 00:07:33.089 it a book that needed to be written. So the mainstream 00:07:33.089 --> 00:07:35.350 media and the general public were totally on 00:07:35.350 --> 00:07:38.930 board with the goofball approach. But. The established 00:07:38.930 --> 00:07:41.170 feminist thinkers had a very different reaction. 00:07:41.329 --> 00:07:43.589 They did. And the most significant pushback came 00:07:43.589 --> 00:07:46.410 from feminist heavyweight Germaine Greer. Germaine 00:07:46.410 --> 00:07:49.009 Greer, the author of The Female Eunuch, a massive 00:07:49.009 --> 00:07:51.389 figure in the movement. Huge. And what makes 00:07:51.389 --> 00:07:53.949 this so interesting is that in the book, Moran 00:07:53.949 --> 00:07:57.269 practically worships Greer. She cites her as 00:07:57.269 --> 00:07:59.910 a major inspiration. But Greer did not return 00:07:59.910 --> 00:08:02.589 the love. Not at all. Greer accused Moran of 00:08:02.589 --> 00:08:05.329 creating a straw woman version of her to argue 00:08:05.329 --> 00:08:08.750 against. A straw woman. So basically. Greer felt 00:08:08.750 --> 00:08:11.329 Moran was misrepresenting the older feminist 00:08:11.329 --> 00:08:14.370 arguments just to make her own HA approach look 00:08:14.370 --> 00:08:17.470 more modern and fresh. Exactly. But the most 00:08:17.470 --> 00:08:19.949 biting criticism from Greer was that she accused 00:08:19.949 --> 00:08:24.470 Moran of skimping on her homework. Ouch. Skimping 00:08:24.470 --> 00:08:27.069 on her homework. That is a very sharp critique. 00:08:27.310 --> 00:08:29.740 It gets right to the heart of the divide. Greer's 00:08:29.740 --> 00:08:32.080 saying that Moran is oversimplifying complex 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:35.159 historical struggles, that she lacks the rigor 00:08:35.159 --> 00:08:38.019 necessary to actually advance the movement. So 00:08:38.019 --> 00:08:40.480 Greer's basically saying you can't just laugh 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.139 away systemic inequality. You actually have to 00:08:43.139 --> 00:08:45.970 do the work. Right. And while we aren't taking 00:08:45.970 --> 00:08:49.250 sides here, it's clear this was a clash of methodologies, 00:08:49.429 --> 00:08:52.129 the academic versus the populist. And it wasn't 00:08:52.129 --> 00:08:54.549 just Greer who noticed this. The review from 00:08:54.549 --> 00:08:57.070 Time magazine had a really interesting take that 00:08:57.070 --> 00:08:59.809 synthesized both sides of this. Yes. Time called 00:08:59.809 --> 00:09:02.210 the book hugely lovable, acknowledging why it 00:09:02.210 --> 00:09:04.529 was so popular, but they also called it problematically 00:09:04.529 --> 00:09:06.970 narrow. Problematically narrow, meaning it lacked 00:09:06.970 --> 00:09:09.940 intersectionality. Precisely. Moran is a white 00:09:09.940 --> 00:09:12.539 British woman. The critique is that her every 00:09:12.539 --> 00:09:14.879 woman approach assumes her specific experiences 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:17.820 like the pressure to get a bikini wax are universal. 00:09:18.059 --> 00:09:20.600 Right. If you're dealing with poverty or severe 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:24.399 systemic racism, pointing and going H .A. at 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:26.500 the patriarchy might not feel like a practical 00:09:26.500 --> 00:09:29.080 solution. That's the core of the narrowness critique. 00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:32.080 The book succeeded wildly as a popular entry 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.940 point, the lovable aspect, but faced intense 00:09:34.940 --> 00:09:37.059 scrutiny for leaving out the struggles of women 00:09:37.059 --> 00:09:40.159 who don't share Moran's demographics. It's the 00:09:40.159 --> 00:09:42.779 tradeoff of the populist approach. To make it 00:09:42.779 --> 00:09:44.899 sellable and funny, she had to streamline it. 00:09:45.070 --> 00:09:47.429 But in streamlining it, she left out the nuances 00:09:47.429 --> 00:09:50.370 of race and class. That's exactly how the sources 00:09:50.370 --> 00:09:53.389 synthesized the reception. It was a gateway drug 00:09:53.389 --> 00:09:56.029 to feminism for millions, but it wasn't the whole 00:09:56.029 --> 00:09:57.970 curriculum. Which is a perfect way to summarize 00:09:57.970 --> 00:10:00.450 this journey. It's a memoir that literally used 00:10:00.450 --> 00:10:03.009 laughter to open the door to feminism for over 00:10:03.009 --> 00:10:04.990 a million people. It changed the conversation 00:10:04.990 --> 00:10:08.110 in 2011. It did. But it also sparked a really 00:10:08.110 --> 00:10:11.110 necessary debate about... What gets lost when 00:10:11.110 --> 00:10:13.269 we try to make heavy political movements fun 00:10:13.269 --> 00:10:16.490 and easily digestible? And despite those critiques, 00:10:16.649 --> 00:10:19.690 the sheer volume of sales, over a million copies, 00:10:19.950 --> 00:10:22.289 proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there 00:10:22.289 --> 00:10:24.789 was a massive hunger for this specific approachable 00:10:24.789 --> 00:10:26.950 voice. People wanted to be invited in without 00:10:26.950 --> 00:10:29.029 feeling like they were being scolded. Exactly. 00:10:29.129 --> 00:10:31.210 And that brings me to a final thought I want 00:10:31.210 --> 00:10:32.830 to leave you with today, building on this whole 00:10:32.830 --> 00:10:35.850 concept of the fifth wave. Let's hear it. Moran's 00:10:35.850 --> 00:10:38.169 solution to the bullshit of modern life is to 00:10:38.169 --> 00:10:42.059 simply point and go. It's empowering in the moment. 00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:45.059 But if you think about it, is humor enough to 00:10:45.059 --> 00:10:48.539 create actual structural change? Or is laughing 00:10:48.539 --> 00:10:51.240 at the system just a really effective coping 00:10:51.240 --> 00:10:54.379 mechanism that makes living within that unequal 00:10:54.379 --> 00:10:57.220 structure a little more tolerable? Wow. That 00:10:57.220 --> 00:11:00.279 is a fantastic question to chew on. Does laughing 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:02.500 dismantle the wall or just make it easier to 00:11:02.500 --> 00:11:04.779 stand next to? Exactly. Well, we will leave you 00:11:04.779 --> 00:11:06.620 with that to mull over. Thank you for joining 00:11:06.620 --> 00:11:08.559 us on this deep dive into how to be a woman, 00:11:08.639 --> 00:11:10.820 the humor of the fury and everything in between. 00:11:11.019 --> 00:11:11.919 We'll catch you next time.