I am Sexy. I am Funny. I am a Fucking Feminist.



So, I've been fuming about this Guardian article, entitled 'Feminists can be sexy and funny, but it's anger that changes the world' for two whole days now, and thought it was high time that I wrote something about it. In fact, I woke up angry about it, and seeing as it's anger that is apparently so effective at changing the world, I thought I might as well channel it into a pissed off blog post. 

In the article, Ellie Mae O'Hagan argues that the 'new feminist movement' is doomed if it continues to prize being sexy and funny above being angry. That feminism needs to be, at it's core, angry, rather than likeable, otherwise it will ultimately fail, and that in a patriarchy, what is popular is what is acceptable to men. It also features a dismissal of Caitlin Moran as 'blokey' (nice), as well as cherry-picking and misrepresenting some (admittedly uncool) remarks Moran made in an interview about high heels and rape as, I don't know, examples of her apparent crapness as a feminist (and incidentally, if we're playing that game, then Frieden was a homophobe, so hardly perfect either). 

Now, I am a feminist. I am a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes even SEXY feminist (sometimes I wear lipstick and heels and stockings and fuck on top, and sometimes I wear baggy jumpers covered in croissant crumbs and eat food of the floor and pick my nose and talk about Marxism, and sometimes I talk about Marxism WHILE fucking on top). 

I am also in turns angry, frustrated, disheartened, ashamed, and fucked off at the inequalities still rife in our society. In other words, I am a fully rounded human being capable of a whole spectrum of emotions and, unlike Katherine Hepburn or Ellie Mae's vision of a full-time angry feminist, I can run the whole fucking gamut fairly easily. 

So this is my first issue with the piece. That, as feminists, we have to be this, or we have to be that. We can't be both, or many things, or everything. Granted, some feminists are better at the jokes than others. Moran, particularly, tells a really REALLY good joke. But to dismiss her essentially as 'a joke' or 'a joker' does her a disservice. How To Be a Woman is a hilarious book. It's also in turns sweet, sad, upsetting and yes, angry. I like it. Whether or not you do is your biznizz, but to take this woman's autobiography-cum-manifesto and to reduce it down and dismiss it as frivolous humour essentially takes a massive shit on Moran's life's work. Perhaps it's time for a re-read of those chapters about being bullied, and abortion, and her traumatic labour. You know, the ones that are really, really sad, and make you tear up, and fume, and clench your fists, like all good writing should. I have never really seen Moran as merely a 'fun feminist', just as I don't imagine Julie Bindel strides around her house shouting at the walls about human trafficking. In fact, I bet Bindel can tell a fucking good joke, too. We're all human beings, and we express things in different ways,  at different times, and that's ok. It's more than OK- it's awesome. 

(As a side note, anyone who thinks Moran doesn't engage in issues pertaining to 'social oppression', as Ellie seems to imply in the piece, needs to go and read Moran's column about growing up on benefits, or the one about the cuts and how they affected her friend with mental health problems, both of which will probably make you cry, because they are that good. Moran is writing about social oppression on a pretty god-damn regular basis in a conservative newspaper, which is arguably more likely to change people's minds than anything about cuts in the Guardian. So go and read them. Yes, a one day subscription to the Times does mean you'll be feeding the cash cow that is News International. Deal with it)

But I don't want to make this whole piece about Caitlin Moran. There are enough blog posts in the underbelly of the internet about whether or not armchair feminist bloggesses everywhere approve of her or not, and quite frankly it's boring. I mean, who cares? She's doing her thing- now go and do yours, already!

But anyway, allow me to return to this point about how apparently we're only ever allowed to express one emotion at a time, that we need to be 'one voice'. As someone on Twitter so sagely pointed out, 'A multiplicity of voices is inconvenient. We must come in a recognisable dismissable guise.' 

Quite. 

One of the things I love (and I mean LOVE) about this new wave of feminism, is that it features a range of women campaigning on different, varied issues. A war on many fronts, if you will. I see it as progress, as the feminist movement moving on from a time where you were essentially supposed to sign up to some kind of bullshit feminist charter in order to join the club. It was particularly highlighted on Sunday night, when we were guests at the women's dinner at Queen's College, Cambridge. At the drinks reception, Laura Bates of Everyday Sexism made an amazing, impassioned, heartrendering speech about the culture of misogyny we inhabit. People were literally choking up. It was ace.

Then after dinner we got up and made some gags about blowjobs. 

Except, of course, we didn't just make gags about blowjobs. We talked about sexism in the media, but we did it in a funny, engaging way. Just as people had responded to Laura with anger and sadness, people responded to us with laughter. 

In other words (and I'm going to say this three times to really hammer it home): there is room for both. 

There is room for both.

There is room for both. 

During my time as a feminist blogger and writer, I have met some of the most genuinely hilarious women that I could ever hope to meet. They are all campaigning tirelessly against sexism, they are all brilliant. I am honoured to call some of them my friends. And to imply that what they're doing somehow isn't good enough, or that they are frivolous, or that they are simply 'funny and sexy' and therefore impotent and weak, well, that makes me pretty angry.

Anger is at the core of most humour. What? You think we made a whole blog and wrote a whole book because we were mildly cheesed off at gender inequality after lunch one day and thought it would be a good opportunity to make some cheap gags? Nope. We did it because sexism makes us REALLY ANGRY. Oh, and also because embarrassing people by pointing and laughing at them is a really good way of combatting bad behaviour. 

To dismiss humour not only limits your options as far as activism is concerned (and there has been some pretty hilarious activism - KNITTED VAGINAS, people!) but also completely dimisses the long legacy of women who have challenged patriarchy through jokes. Dorothy Parker, Betty White, Tina Fey, cartoonists such as Jacky Fleming and Claire Bretecher, theatre groups and troupes and comedians and writers and actors, fascinating Aida, activists such as La Barbe, and that woman who wore the t-shirt which said 'if I wanted the government in my womb, I'd fuck a senator'. You're essentially saying that all those women just aren't good enough.

It's poppycock of course. Ellie is great and I like her and her writing, but she is so wrong on this. These women are good enough. They are brilliant feminists. They, and not the furious blogging twitter mob Rad Fems comprehensible only to each other, are the reason I, and many like me, identify as one.

Like it or not, humour speaks to people. It garners their interest, it draws them in, and it makes them wet their pants laughing. It is a more effective recruiting tool than anything else. Say what you like about Moran, but she is the reason the movement is seeing a resurgence. She is the reason that women I know, women who never thought about this stuff, have turned around and said 'yeah actually, I'm a feminist.' She is the reason they then move on to Greer. 

No, it's not particularly academic, and no, the buck doesn't stop there, but it has power, and it's converted so, so many to the cause. Shouting doesn't. It just doesn't. Try it. Next time you're at a party. See how many friends you make. Then come back to me with the results. 

The other thing that struck me about piece was that, actually, suggesting that feminists shouldn't be funny is pretty sexist. No one says, 'oi! Armando Iannucci, you're the Thick of it programme is jokes but you're clearly not doing politics properly' or 'hey, Ian Hislop, you're not taking the government seriously enough. Politics is serious bizznizz'. They literally NEVER say that.

And that's because men get to do both. 

This week, we've been working with the Girl Guides on ways of making feminism more appealing to young women. We're also doing our first school assembly in May, and are really looking forward to it. Feminism should be about recruiting a new generation of potential warriors, not about telling some woman her tactics are wrong (especially when her tactics are, FYI, super-effective). When we go into that school, I am going to make damn sure that I make the girls laugh. I want them rolling in the aisles. I want them questioning things, discussing things, engaged, passionate, arguing. The last thing I want to be is an angry feminist cliche who alienates them further. I want them to know the truth: that feminism is fun, and hilarious, and important, and that you can channel anger into something positive and world-changing. That you can be clever, and powerful, and palatable to men (if that's what you want.) That feminism doesn't mean all those things they think it means, and that we know they think it means, because they told us:




I will try to undo some of the bad PR this Guardian article will have inevitably have caused by essentially confirming everything that teenage girls have been saying to us about why feminism is a dirty word. 

I will tell them that we live in a horribly unequal world, and sometimes you have to laugh, or else you'll cry, all the time. 

I will tell them: 'I am sexy, I am funny, and I am a fucking feminist.' And I know some of them will join me, and we will change the world.