Summary

In Chapter 4, Caitlin urges her readers to taste their own menstrual blood, as Germaine Greer first recommended (Caitlin herself has done it). Barring an appropriate time and place to do that, Caitlin recommends readers (both men and women) proudly proclaim, “I AM A FEMINIST!” (Page 67). Caitlin first verbalizes her feminism at the age of fifteen (1990), three years after she wrote her “By the Time I’m 18” list in which she sets herself the goals of losing weight and getting good clothes and friends. Though she still doesn’t have friends, Caitlin is not lonely because books, music, and television open up other worlds to her. She devours autobiographies, discovering Dorothy Parker, who becomes her comedy idol. She notices a trend among smart, compelling women like Parker: they all have self-destructive tendencies. Caitlin eventually discovers Germaine...