Best-selling author, Caitlin Moran, sits down with marie claire for our new series ‘Backchat’, where she discusses childhood heroes, handling sadness and why we need to talk about men.
Marie Claire: What has been the most challenging thing you’ve had to unlearn in life?
Caitlin Moran: That you can change your mind. If you’re not changing your mind multiple times a year on quite fundamental topics, then you’re just simply not living, reading, travelling or talking.
MC: Phrase you overuse?
CM: Swear words. I keep forgetting that some people see those words as offensive. I just simply see them as natural as taking a breath.
MC: Childhood hero?
Bugs Bunny. My sister and I love those cartoons.
MC: Historic concert you wish you could have attended?
CM: The Beatles. Seeing those girls screaming and losing their minds would’ve been just as interesting as watching The Beatles.
MC: What is the ultimate indulgence for you?
CM: I’m one of those middle-aged women who is into cold-water swimming and then tells everybody about it.
MC: Who is the woman who has shaped you the most?
CM: My mother. I need her in my life so I can do everything the opposite of what she’s done.
MC: Last book that made you cry?
CM: My book What About Men? is making me cry at the moment. I get so much abuse online from angry men.
MC: A lesson you wish you had learnt sooner?
CM: Learning to sit with people who are sad until the sadness passes. I had to learn that the hard way with my daughter. When you’re dealing with sad people, don’t try to cheer them up or solve
their problems. You just need to listen and go, “That’s shit. I’m so sorry. Let’s talk about your sadness.”
MC: A talent you wish you had?
CM: The ability to drive. The first driving lesson I ever had, I kept hitting the curb because I was getting distracted by boys. It became too dangerous, so I gave up.
MC: What’s a topic people should be talking more about?
CM: Men. I was doing a talk about feminism a couple of years ago and the teenage boys hijacked it. They were furious and said, “We don’t want to talk about women anymore. Women are winning and boys are losing and it’s harder to be a man.”
I was astonished by that because, clearly, that’s not true. Women are still massively under-represented in every sector, the pay gap still exists and one in four of us are still sexually assaulted or raped. So how could these boys think that women were winning? I realised that underneath it all these boys are scared.
The one thing that men haven’t got is feminism. I think that’s what teenage boys are envious of. People say things like “The future is female” and “Women are going to change the world” and I think men ultimately want to bear that hope and that sense of being part of something.
MC: What simple pleasure brings you the most happiness?
CM: I’m a massive speed reader because I didn’t go to school [Moran was home schooled from age 11]. Everything I learnt was from going to my local library. I think books are still the greatest technology we’ve invented.
MC: Which reality TV show would you like to go on?
CM: Below Deck.
MC: What is the biggest misconception people have about you?
CM: People think I’m an overconfident and brilliant clown who wants to provoke people. [These] people haven’t read my work and just see a picture of me doing my silly face. Whereas, what I spend most of my time doing is trying to make what I’m writing as gentle and warm and inviting as possible. A lot of politicians read my column [in London’s The Times] and sometimes my columns get quoted in debates in parliament. That’s one of my greatest joys – that a kid from a council house in Wolverhampton [in central England] has managed to get her voice heard in parliament.
What About Men? by Caitlin Moran (Penguin, $35) is out now.
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