Germaine Greer

Born 29 January 1939 (82 years old) in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Dr. Germaine Greer is a feminist, author, scholar, and journalist famous for her book The Female Eunuch (1970). She studied at the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney and received her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Her main research focuses on female reproduction and sexual freedom for women, but she is also known for her biography of William Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway as well as her interest in environmental restoration and protection.

Having become a household name, Greer is considered a radical feminist and perceived to present more “outspoken and unexpected” ideas (“Germaine Greer”). She is critical of the gains of the Women’s Liberation Movement, claiming them to be merely “handed down by the male establishment” (“Germaine Greer”) and is known for her controversialism and criticism of people such as Norman Mailer.

The Female Eunuch (1970)

In her most famous book, Greer discusses the sexual subordination of wives to their husbands and urges them to “free themselves from the bondage of the nuclear family” (Hale and Hawkins 21). She criticizes the concept of the nuclear family and instead advocates for women to assert themselves as subjects rather than to remain objectified.

Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984)

Being less critical of the concept of a nuclear family in this later publication, Greer now focuses on the problems surrounding female fertility. She laments the cultural loss of child-bearing rituals and fertility tracking and criticizes the increasing focus on marital sex which, in her opinion, has gained precedence over child-rearing. As in her article “Feminism and Fertility,” Greer addresses the dangers and non-essentiality of contraception for women and instead promotes natural contraceptive methods which do not put female health at risk.

Critique

Greer’s publications have been criticized by various scholars such as Ann Hale and Mary Hawkins. Most critics agree that Greer uses limited evidence for her argumentation and tends to ignore the economic and political injustices under which women suffer in contemporary society. Whilst she appears at times contradictory and less sensitive of topics such as rape, Greer is nonetheless credited for her emotional way of articulation which grabs the attention of her readers yet fails to hide the shortcomings of her arguments.

Notable Works

The Female Eunuch (1970)
The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work (1979)
Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984)
The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991)
Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection, and the Woman Poet (1995)
The Whole Woman (1999)
On Rape (2018)

Sources

Diamond, Arlyn. “Elizabeth Janeway and Germaine Greer.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 13, no. 1/2, 1972, pp. 275–9. Jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/25088230. Accessed 30 November 2021.
“Germaine Greer.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 November 2021, www.britannica.com/biography/Germaine-Greer. Accessed 30 November 2021.
Greer, Germaine. “Feminism and Fertility.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 1976, pp. 1–18, doi.org/10.2307/3346065. Accessed 30 November 2021.
Hale, Ann, and Mary Hawkins. “Eggs Not Sex: The Functionalism of Germaine Greer.” Anthropology Today, vol. 1, no. 2, 1985, pp. 21–3, doi.org/10.2307/3033204. Accessed 30 November 2021.
Roberts, Yvonne, Afua Hirsch, and Hannah Jane Parkinson. “Reading Germaine: Three Generations Respond to On Rape.” The Guardian, 9 September 2018, www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/09/germaine-greer-on-rape-book-three-women-respond. Accessed 28 December 2021.