01c. 1975 ADI am eating this noise like mouthfuls of freezing, glittering fog. I am filling with it. I am using it as energy. Because what you are, as a teenager, is a small, silver, empty rocket. And you use loud music as fuel, and then the information in books as maps and coordinates, to tell you where you're going.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
02c. 1975 ADBecause this injunction for all women to have children isn't in any way logical. If you take a moment to consider the state of the world, the thing you notice is that there are plenty of babies being born; the planet really doesn't need all of us to produce more babies.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
03c. 1975 ADI am a massive slag!" I think to myself, in a motivational way. "I'm a Lady Sex Adventuress! I'm a Pirate of Privates! I'm a swashfuckler!" ... I think of "Teenage Whore" by Courtney Love as my personal anthem.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
04c. 1975 ADBut deciding not to have children is a very, very hard decision for a woman to make: the atmosphere is worryingly inconducive to saying, "I choose not to," or "it all sounds a bit vile, tbh." We call these women "selfish" The inference of the word "childless" is negative: one of lack, and loss. We think of nonmothers as rangy lone wolves--rattling around, as dangerous as teenage boys or men. We make women feel that their narrative has ground to a halt in their thirities if they don't "finish things" properly and have children.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
05c. 1975 ADHowever, what I do believe to genuinely sacred - and, indeed, more useful to the earth as a whole - is trying to ensure that there are as few unbalanced, destructive people as possible. By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. It's those unhappy, unwanted children, who then grew into angry adults, who have caused the great majority of humankind's miseries. They are the ones who make states feel feral; streets dangerous; relationships violent.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
06c. 1975 ADEvery woman who chooses - joyfully, thoughtfully, calmly, of their own free will and desire - not to have a child does womankind a massive favour in the long term. We need more women who are allowed to prove their worth as people; rather than being assessed merely for their potential to create new people. After all, half those new people we go on to create are also women - presumably themselves to be judged, in their futures, for not making new people. And so it will go on and on...Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
07c. 1975 ADParents drinking is the reason you came into the world, and if we didn't keep doing it then, by God, it would be the reason you went back out of it.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
08c. 1975 ADYou can tell whether some misogynistic societal pressure is being exerted on women by calmly enquiring, ‘And are the men doing this, as well?’ If they aren’t, chances are you’re dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as ‘some total fucking bullshit’.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
09c. 1975 ADFor throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all the odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled or ruined, because all around them, society was still wrong. Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc - and you also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
10c. 1975 ADWhat is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be. Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
11c. 1975 ADBecause the purpose of feminism isn’t to make a particular type of woman. The idea that there are inherently wrong and inherently right “types” of women is what’s screwed feminism for so long — this belief that “we” wouldn’t accept slaggy birds, dim birds, birds that bitch, birds that hire cleaners, birds that stay at home with their kids, birds that have pink Mini Metros with POWERED BY FAIRY DUST! bumper stickers, birds in burkas or birds that like to pretend, in their heads, that they’re married to Zach Braff from Scrubs and that you sometimes have sex in an ambulance while the rest of the cast watch and, latterly, clap. You know what? Feminism will have all of you.What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be.Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
12c. 1975 ADBatman doesn’t want a baby in order to feel he’s ‘done everything’. He’s just saved Gotham again! If this means that Batman must be a feminist role model above, say, Nicola Horlick, then so be it.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
13c. 1975 ADYour key hobbies need to be long country walks (get some fresh air in those lungs!), masturbation, and the revolution. Between those three, you should, in the long term, stay relatively sane.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
14c. 1975 ADIt was the 'Are the boys doing it?' basis on which I finally decided I was against women wearing burkas. Yes, the idea is that it protects your modesty, and ensures that people regard you as a human being, rather than just a sexual object (...) But who are you being protected from? Men. And who - so long as you play by the rules, and wear the correct clothes - is protecting you from the men? Men. And who is it that is regarding you as a sexual object, instead of another human being, in the first place? Men. Well. This all seems like quite a man-based problem, really. (...) I don't know why we're suddenly having to put things on our heads to make it better.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
15c. 1975 ADIn fact, in recent years I have become more and more didactic about pubic hair - to the point where I now believe that there are only four things a grown, modern woman should have: a pair of yellow shoes (they unexpectedly go with everything), a friend who will come and post bail at 4 a.m., a fail-safe pie recipe, and a proper muff. A big, hairy minge. A lovely furry moof that looks - when she sits, naked - as if she has a marmoset sitting in her lap. A tame marmoset, that she can send of to pickpocket things, should she so need it - like that trained monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
17c. 1975 ADWhen a woman walks into a room, her outfit is the first thing she says, before she even opens her mouth. Women are judged on what they wear in a way men would find incomprehensible.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
18c. 1975 ADThe reason they don't ask me when they're having kids, of course, is because men can, pretty much, carry on a normal life once they've had a baby.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
19c. 1975 ADStrip clubs let everyone down. Men and women approach their very worst here.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
20c. 1975 ADThere's no self-expression or joy in these joints-- no springboard to self-discovery, or adventure, like any decent night out involving men, women, alcohol, and taking your clothes off. Why do many people have a gut reaction to strip clubs? Because inside them, no one is having fun.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
21c. 1975 ADIn that instance, my body had decided that this baby was not to be and had ended it. This time, it is my mind that has decided that this baby was not to be. I don't believe one's decision is more valid than the other. They both know me. They are both equally capable of deciding what is right.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
22c. 1975 ADWe're supposed to speak from the heart in what we wear. We have to find capsule wardrobes.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
23c. 1975 ADWomen wear heels because they think they make their legs look thinner.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
24c. 1975 ADNot one had ever passed judgement on my cheap handbag to my face. But then, this is a reserved country.Caitlin Moran / quote ↗
