With new book More Than A Woman out now, author Caitlin Moran is reassessing everything in life, from domesticity to sex.
Ever one to multi-task, Caitlin Moran’s on Google while we chat, looking for Cardi B’s infamous new WAP song.
‘I haven’t seen it yet, but my daughter was telling me about it and said Piers Morgan’s angry because it’s about sex. Is it any more complex than that?’ she asks before skimming through the lyrics and rattling them off with characteristically wry observations.
Love or hate it, the song’s provoked furore over its unashamedly sexual content, including Russell Brand’s recent musings as to whether it constituted a feminist masterpiece or porn.
‘I’m wary of people saying men can’t talk about feminism, but what would be useful is if men used feminism to talk about the problems for men, rather than the problems for women,’ says Caitlin whose 2011 book How To Be A Woman heralded her the voice of modern feminism.
‘When I wrote it, I knew no-one had explained feminism in a way that made it just seem what it is, which is something that allows you to be more joyous, to understand the world and yourself more.’
Caitlin presumed it would sell about 60,000 copies ‘And then it sold a million copies and was translated into all these languages,’ she says.
‘I remember writing about masturbation and abortion and just thinking is this too far? But when you realise people are pleased you wrote it, and it’s helping them, you’re given a mandate to go further. It gives you an astonishing freedom as a writer.’
The book was a gamechanger for women, but she’s constantly asked, “What about the men?”.
‘Initially I thought, “Arrgh!”, it’s the ultimate irony of feminism if women, having sorted out their own problems, then have to sort out the problems for men, but then I looked at the classic definition of feminism, which is the belief in the social, economic, political and personal equality of the sexes.
‘There are gender presumptions that make men’s lives difficult and men have never had a revolution where they talk about what it means to be a man.
‘I say, come and join us in our fabulous futurist utopia where we talk about what we want to be, rather than what we’re supposed to be.’
Just as she now concedes men can also take issue with the patriarchy, so she’s done a U-turn on other subject matters tackled in How To Be A Woman, like Botox for instance.
Her younger self had declared it a no-go, but at 45, she’s now a fan.
‘I don’t evangelise about it. If you don’t want it, don’t have it, but it doesn’t make you a bad feminist if you do.’
Caitlin, who grew up the eldest of eight siblings in Wolverhampton and was home educated, makes the valid point our younger selves should never judge their older incarnations.
‘I remember getting to 18 and going, “Well, that’s it, this is me and now I know everything”, then you do it again at the end of your twenties, then I wrote How To Be A Woman and I was like, “This is definitely me now”, and then you get to 45 and slowly start to realise your entire life is every ten years going, “No, this is me now, all the previous ‘mes’ were dumb”,’ says Caitlin, whose new book, More Than A Woman, is an ode to middle age women.
‘You forget what it was like ten years ago. It was pre-Fleabag, pre-Amy Schumer, pre-Girls. There wasn’t a female humour about being messy and talking about your physicality and sexuality.
‘We’ve got so many of those now, and that’s amazing. We know all about the Hot Messes and building yourself from a teenage girl into a half-way functioning woman but then you get to middle age, and go hang on, there’s a real silence here,’ she remarks.
‘It’s seen as being boring and there’s a silence around domesticity. You’re still the same person you were ten years ago and the stuff that happens inside a house, even though we never make movies about it, is epic.
‘I wanted to be able to throw open the doors of any house, and just show what the average middle-aged woman does every day, and how heroic they are.
‘These women, who are so self-deprecating and put themselves last, are the women who hold society together.’
Topics include marriage, ageing, teenage children, self-help, maintenance shags, lists, vulvas, mum bods, happiness, the joys of ‘hag-dom’ and the urge to form a Women’s Union.
Her husband, Pete, who she’s been married to for 20 years, and two teenage daughters, make cameos throughout.
‘I don’t want to invade their privacy, so use a tiny little vignette and then use that to talk about the bigger issue,’ says Caitlin who feels conspiratorial when she’s writing, ‘like we’re all in a gang, sharing secrets’.
She uses her own experiences as a springboard to prompt discussion, but ‘I would never want to speak for other people, that’s their story and I don’t want to step on anyone else’s material.
‘Whether they’re of colour or LGBTQ, or differently abled, or a different religion, I want to read their version of it, their truth. What I try and do is use my platform on Twitter [to highlight these stories], so people can read those.’
Speaking of Twitter, Caitlin’s got plenty to say on social media, too.
‘For the first time ever, the entire world can communicate and that’s the beginning of a global consciousness,’ says Caitlin. ‘Obviously there are teething problems with that.
‘Twitter started off as joyous, almost too nice, and then, slowly, it’s become the hateful sewer it is now.
‘But I’m happy to be someone who doesn’t constantly go, “Look, this is all wrong, that’s all bad.” Let the bad people get on with their bad stuff, I’ll just find the good people and point at them instead. I think that’s a far more useful thing to do.
‘Try and make sure your timeline is a series of solutions, great ideas and people who are trying to make things better.’
Although she isn’t so foolhardy to think it’s smooth sailing from here on (‘I’ll probably do one of these books every ten years because different challenges come along’), she feels like ‘a content creature’ right now, and it’s not all down to her new-found love of yoga.
‘The kids are happy, my dog’s funny, and I’ve got a huge list of books, films and TV series I want to write.
‘If I can get most of them done before I die, I’ll be lucky,’ says Caitlin who recently adapted another of her books, How To Build A Girl, into a film.
‘All the advice I got growing up was from books, TV shows, movies and heroes, so I’m aware of that role you can play for people who need guidance, and I’m really happy to do that.’
More Than A Woman by Caitlin Moran, published by Ebury, is out now.
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