Book Review: Caitlin Moran, More Than A Woman

Encouraging her peers to “take your space - you’ve earned it”, Caitlin Moran’s latest book emcompasses 24 hours in the life of the average woman. Injecting her searing humour into every page, More Than a Woman never takes itself too seriously. Wanting to gift younger generations with nuggets of knowledge she needed herself, the writer is nostalgic but makes light of how much she has changed since the release of How to be a Woman a decade ago.

Moran paints herself as approachable, witty and unflinchingly honest, which she undoubtedly is. It takes a brave person to speak openly about topics such as mental health, female sexuality after the age of 40, and the unpaid labour and emotional burdens which middle-aged women shoulder. Wishing for “champions of women who speak out for us when we are too exhausted to do it for the millionth time”, Moran affirms that the most tiring thing about middle age is that there is no one to fix the problems around you except yourself.

The veteran journalist speaks out on what she deems as feminism’s current “hypervigilance”, encouraging women to target the systems of power instead of tearing each other down. She makes an interesting point about how little progress can be achieved by never allowing people to make mistakes and grow from them. It’s important to note that the writer’s version of feminism is not necessarily the embodiment of the everyday woman’s values.

As a straight, white, able-bodied, middle-aged woman in a stable economic position, the voice of this strata used to be seen as the all-compassing liberal feminist opinion. In 2020, if feminism does not include disabled women, transgender women and queer people, Black and brown women - then you don’t fit the label anymore. Moran’s work never claims to be the epitome of every woman’s experiences, nor does she profess to be the expert on the intimidatingly broad spectrum of feminism itself.