O, GG, nevair, evair, change (not within the realms of possibility, rly)
Unfortunately, Germaine Greer's review of Caitlin Moran's new book How To Be A Woman is sequestered behind The Times paywall (chiz! chiz! this is the second time this week that this has thwarted me - apparently Helen King had a letter there exploding the Queen Victorian, cannabis and period pains historimyth, which I have not been able to access).
However, according to a so-so piece by Zoe Williams in today's Guardian Review on some recent books bearing on the question of Feminism Today, GG apparently complained that:
Moran revisits themes that I have written thousands of words about, and even made TV documentaries about, the C-word and pornography for two, and restates my case in pretty much the same terms, with not the faintest suspicion that anyone has ever said any such things ever before.
Errr, you and how many other 70s era feminists, Germaine?
And, quite apart from that somewhat messianic assumption that She Has Spoken and no-one else needs to, these things need restating over and over again.
I will concede that I too am often irked by people misrepresenting or totally ignoring the things that previous generations of feminists said and did (was recently reading a book on some fairly specific 80s London feminist imbroglios and issues over diversity and intersectionality were pretty much key) and the fact that there do seem to be problematic hiatuses between feminist generations, and that I read some of the recent feminist theory and polemic and am pretty much 'been there, done that'.
I would really like some of the young women writing now to be more aware of the history they're coming from and what they can learn from the past and its struggles.
But things also need reiterating in terms of current issues and problems and in the language of the day and repeating over and over again.
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