Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

, regarded as one of the major voices of the

second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred ...

movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literature, she has held academic positions in England at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

and

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...

, and in the United States at the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a Private university, private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Presbyterian Church, although it is now nondenominational, and the campus ...

. Based in the United Kingdom since 1964, she has divided her time since the 1990s between Queensland, Australia, and her home in Essex, England. Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her first book, '' The Female Eunuch'' (1970), made her a household name. An international bestseller and a watershed text in the feminist movement, it offered a systematic deconstruction of ideas such as

womanhood A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional uteruses ...

and

femininity Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

, arguing that women were forced to assume submissive roles in society to fulfil male fantasies of what being a woman entailed. Greer's subsequent work has focused on literature, feminism and the environment. She has written over 20 books, including ''Sex and Destiny'' (1984), ''The Change'' (1991), ''The Whole Woman'' (1999), and '' The Boy'' (2003). Her 2013 book, '' White Beech: The Rainforest Years'', describes her efforts to restore an area of

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

in the Numinbah Valley in Australia. In addition to her academic work and activism, she has been a prolific columnist for ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'', ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'', ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', and '' The Oldie'', among others. Greer is a liberation (or radical) rather than equality feminist. Her goal is not equality with men, which she sees as assimilation and "agreeing to live the lives of unfree men". "Women's liberation", she wrote in ''The Whole Woman'' (1999), "did not see the female's potential in terms of the male's actual." She argues instead that liberation is about asserting difference and "insisting on it as a condition of self-definition and self-determination". It is a struggle for the freedom of women to "define their own values, order their own priorities and decide their own fate".

Early life and education

Melbourne

Greer was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

to a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

family, the elder of two girls followed by a boy. Her father called himself Eric Reginald ("Reg") Greer; he told her he had been born in South Africa, but she learned after his death that he was born Robert Hamilton King in

Launceston, Tasmania Launceston () is a city in the north of Tasmania, Australia, at the confluence of the North Esk River, North Esk and South Esk River, South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River, Tasmania, Tamar River (kanamaluka). As of 2021, the Launc ...

. She also learned he was christened Robert Henry Eric Ernest Hambert. He and her mother, Margaret ("Peggy") May Lafrank, had married in March 1937; Reg converted to Catholicism before the wedding. Peggy was a milliner and Reg a newspaper-advertising salesman. Despite her Catholic upbringing and her father's open

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

, Greer became convinced that her father was secretly of Jewish heritage. She believed her grandmother had been a Jewish woman named Rachel Weiss, but admits that she probably made this up out of an "intense longing to be Jewish." Despite not knowing whether she had any Jewish ancestry, Greer "felt Jewish" and began to involve herself in the Jewish community. She learned

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

, joined a Jewish theatre group, and dated Jewish men. In addition to English, Greer had learnt three European languages by the age of 12."Germaine Bloody Greer", https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6q27f (subscription required The family lived in the Melbourne suburb of Elwood, at first in a rented flat in Docker Street, near the beach, then in another rented flat on the Esplanade. In January 1942 Greer's father joined the Second Australian Imperial Force; after training with the

Royal Australian Air Force The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is the principal Air force, aerial warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Army. Constitutionally the Governor-Gener ...

, he worked on ciphers for the British

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

. Greer attended St Columba's Catholic Primary School in Elwood from February 1943—the family was by then living at 57 Ormond Road, Elwood—followed by Sacred Heart Parish School, Sandringham, and Holy Redeemer School, Ripponlea. In 1952 Greer won a scholarship to Star of the Sea College in Gardenvale, a convent school run by the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary; a school report called her "a bit of a mad-cap and somewhat erratic in her studies and in her personal responses". Greer described her childhood as a "long remembered boredom", and has said it was her Catholic school that introduced her to art and music. That year, artwork by her was included in the under-14 section of the Children's Art Exhibition at Tye's Gallery, opened by Archbishop Mannix. Greer achieved the second highest exam results in the state. A year after leaving school, Greer left the Catholic faith, having found the nuns' arguments for the

existence of God The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and theology. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God (with the same or similar arguments also generally being used when talking about the exis ...

unconvincing. She left home when she was 18. She had a difficult relationship with her mother who, according to Greer, probably had

Asperger syndrome Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's syndrome or Asperger's, is a diagnostic label that has historically been used to describe a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and no ...

. In 2012 she said that her brother might have forgiven her for "abandoning" them, but she was not so sure about her sister, "whom I love more than anyone else on earth".

University

Melbourne and Sydney

From 1956 Greer studied English and French language and literature at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

on a Teacher's College Scholarship, living at home for the first two years on an allowance of £8 a week. tall by the age of 16, she was a striking figure. "Tall, loose-limbed and good-humoured, she strode around the campus, aware that she was much talked about", according to the journalist Peter Blazey, a contemporary at Melbourne. During her first year she had some kind of breakdown as a result of depression and was briefly treated in hospital. She told ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' (stylized in all caps) is an American men's Lifestyle journalism, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, available both online and in print. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, funded in part by a $ ...

'' magazine, in an interview published in 1972, that she had been raped during her second year at Melbourne, an experience she described in detail in ''The Guardian'' in March 1995. Just before she graduated from Melbourne in 1959 with an upper second, she moved to Sydney, where she became involved with the Sydney Push and the

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

Sydney Libertarians. " ese people talked about truth and only truth", she said, "insisting that most of what we were exposed to during the day was ideology, which was a synonym for lies—or bullshit, as they called it." They would meet in a back room of the Royal George Hotel on Sussex Street.

Clive James Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.Christine Wallace, wrote that Greer "walked into the Royal George Hotel, into the throng talking themselves hoarse in a room stinking of stale beer and thick with cigarette smoke, and set out to follow the Push way of life, 'an intolerably difficult discipline which I forced myself to learn'". Greer already thought of herself as an anarchist without knowing why she was drawn to it; through the Push, she became familiar with anarchist literature. She had significant relationships in the group with Harry Hooton and Roelof Smilde, both prominent members. She shared an apartment with Smilde on Glebe Point Road, but the relationship did not last; according to Wallace, the Push ideology of "

free love Free love is a social movement that accepts all forms of love. The movement's initial goal was to separate the State (polity), state from sexual and romantic matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. It stated that such issues we ...

" involved the rejection of possessiveness and jealousy, which naturally worked in the men's favour. When the relationship with Smilde ended, Greer enrolled at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

to study

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

, where, Clive James wrote, she became "famous for her brilliantly foul tongue". One of her friends there, Arthur Dignam, said that she "was the only woman we had met at that stage who could confidently, easily and amusingly put men down". She became involved in acting at Sydney and played Mother Courage in '' Mother Courage and Her Children'' in August 1963. That year she was awarded a first-class MA for a thesis entitled "The Development of Byron's Satiric Mode", and took up an appointment at Sydney as senior tutor in English, with an office next door to Stephen Knight in the university's Carslaw Building. "She was undoubtedly an excellent teacher", he said. "And one of the best lecturers—one of the few who could command the Wallace Lecture Theatre, with its 600 students. She had a kind of histrionic quality which was quite remarkable, added to her real scholarship."

Cambridge

The MA won Greer a Commonwealth Scholarship, with which she funded further studies at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, arriving in October 1964 at Newnham College, a women-only college. She had been encouraged to move from Sydney by Sam Goldberg, a Leavisite, who had been Challis Chair of English Literature at Sydney since 1963. Initially joining a BA course at Cambridge—her scholarship would have allowed her to complete it in two years—Greer managed to switch after the first term ("by force of argument", according to

Clive James Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

, supervised by Anne Barton, then known as Anne Righter. She said she switched because she "realized they were not going to teach eranything". It was Muriel Bradbrook, Cambridge's first female Professor of English, who persuaded Greer to study Shakespeare; Bradbrook had supervised Barton's PhD. Cambridge was a difficult environment for women. As Christine Wallace notes, one Newnham student described her husband receiving a dinner invitation in 1966 from Christ's College that allowed "Wives in for sherry only". Lisa Jardine first encountered Greer at a formal dinner in Newnham. The principal had asked for silence for speeches. "As a hush descended, one person continued to speak, too engrossed in her conversation to notice":

At the graduates' table, Germaine was explaining with passion that there could be no liberation for women, no matter how highly educated, as long as we were required to cram our breasts into bras constructed like mini-
Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius ( ) is a Somma volcano, somma–stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuv ...
es, two stitched, white, cantilevered cones which bore no resemblance to the female anatomy. The willingly suffered discomfort of the Sixties bra, she opined vigorously, was a hideous symbol of male oppression.

As soon as she arrived, Greer auditioned (with

Footlights The Cambridge Footlights, commonly referred to simply as Footlights, is a student sketch comedy troupe located in Cambridge, England. Footlights was founded in 1883, and is one of Britain's oldest student sketch comedy troupes. The comedy so ...

, in its club room in Falcon Yard above a Mac Fisheries shop. They performed a sketch in which he was

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...

and she was Gertrude Lawrence. Joining on the same day as James and Russell Davies, Greer was one of the first women to be admitted as a full member, along with Sheila Buhr and Hilary Walston. The ''Cambridge News'' carried a news item about it in November 1964, referring to the women as "three girls". Greer's response to being accepted was reportedly: "This place is jumping with freckle-punchers. You can have it on your own." She did take part in its 1965 revue, ''My Girl Herbert'', alongside

Eric Idle Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English actor, comedian, songwriter, musician, screenwriter and playwright. He was a member of the British comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band the Rutles. Idle studied English at Pembroke Co ...

(the Footlights president), John Cameron, Christie Davies and John Grillo. A critic noticed "an Australian girl who had a natural ability to project her voice". Other members of the Footlights when she was there included

Tim Brooke-Taylor Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor (17 July 194012 April 2020) was an English actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of The Goodies. Brooke-Taylor became active in performing in comedy sketches while at the University of Cambridge and beca ...

John Cleese John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and Television presenter, presenter. Emerging from the Footlights, Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinbur ...

Peter Cook Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English comedian, actor, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishmen ...

and David Frost. Greer lived for a time in the room next to Clive James at Friar House on

Bene't Street Bene't Street is a short historic street in central Cambridge, England, the name being derived from St Benedict. There is a junction with King's Parade to the north and Trumpington Street to the south at the western end of the street. Free Scho ...

, opposite The Eagle. Referring to her as "Romaine Rand", James described her room in his memoir of Cambridge, ''May Week Was In June'' (1991): Greer, who speaks fluent Italian, finished her PhD in

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

, Italy, where she stayed for three months in a village with no running water and no electricity. The trip had begun as a visit with a boyfriend, Emilio, but he ended the relationship so Greer changed her plans. Rising before dawn, she would wash herself at a well, drink black coffee and start typing. She was awarded her PhD in May 1968 for a thesis entitled ''The Ethic of Love and Marriage in Shakespeare's Early Comedies''. Her family did not fly over for the ceremony. "I had worked all my life for love, done my best to please everybody, kept going till I reached the top, looked about and found I was all alone." ''The Female Eunuch'' relies extensively on Greer's Shakespearean scholarship, particularly when discussing the history of marriage and courtship.;
. In 1986 Oxford University Press published her book ''Shakespeare'' as part of its Past Masters series, and in 2007 Bloomsbury published her study of

Anne Hathaway Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress. List of awards and nominations received by Anne Hathaway, Her accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime ...

, ''Shakespeare's Wife''.

Early career and writing

Teaching, marriage and television

From 1968 to 1972, Greer worked as an assistant lecturer at the

in Coventry, living at first in a rented bedsit in

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply LeamingtonEven more colloquially, also referred to as Lem or Leam (). (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Pri ...

with two cats and 300 tadpoles. In 1968 she was married for the first and only time, a marriage that ended in divorce in 1973. She met Paul du Feu, a

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

English graduate who was working as a builder, outside a pub in

Portobello Road is a street in the Notting Hill district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London. It runs almost the length of Notting Hill from South to North, roughly parallel with Ladbroke Grove. On Saturdays it is home to Portobello ...

, London, and after a brief courtship they married at Paddington Register Office, using a ring from a pawn shop. Du Feu had already been divorced and had two sons, aged 14 and 16, with his first wife. The relationship lasted only a few weeks. Apparently unfaithful to du Feu seven times in three weeks of marriage, Greer wrote that she had spent their wedding night in an armchair, because her husband, drunk, would not allow her in bed.Greer, Germaine (29 May 2004)
"Country notebook: drunken ex-husband"
''The Daily Telegraph'' Eventually, during a party near

Ladbroke Grove Ladbroke Grove ( ) is a road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, which passes through Kensal Green and Notting Hill, running north–south between Harrow Road and Holland Park Avenue. It is also the name of the sur ...

, "' turned to me and sneered (drunk as usual): 'I could have any woman in this room.' 'Except me,' I said, and walked away for ever.'" In addition to teaching, Greer was trying to make a name for herself in television. In 1967 she appeared in the BBC shows ''Good Old Nocker'' and '' Twice a Fortnight'' and had a starring role in a short film, ''Darling, Do You Love Me'' (1968), by

Martin Sharp Martin Ritchie Sharp (21 January 1942 – 1 December 2013) was an Australian artist, cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Career Sharp was born in Bellevue Hill, New South Wales in 1942, and educated at Cranbrook private school, where one ...

(the Australian artist and co-editor of '' Oz'' magazine) and Bob Whitaker. From 1968 to 1969 she featured in a

Granada Television ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV (TV network), ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire on weekdays only, as ABC Weekend TV, ...

slapstick show, ''Nice Time'', with

Kenny Everett Kenny Everett (born Maurice James Christopher Cole; 25 December 1944 – 4 April 1995) was an English radio Disc Jockey, DJ and television entertainer, known for his zany comedic style. After spells on pirate radio and Radio Luxembourg in the m ...

Sandra Gough Sandra Gough (born 2 August 1943, in Manchester, Lancashire) is an England, English actress, best known for her role as Irma Ogden in the soap opera ''Coronation Street'', which she played from 1964 to 1971. Other roles have included Nellie Ding ...

and Jonathan Routh. One set of outtakes found in Greer's archive at the University of Melbourne features her as a housewife bathing in milk delivered by Everett the milkman. She stated in 1995, that she had wanted to become a mother, but was forced to abandon this due to constant miscarriages.

''Oz'' and ''Suck''

Greer began writing columns as "Dr. G" for '' Oz'' magazine, owned by Richard Neville, whom she had met at a party in Sydney. The Australian ''Oz'' had been shut down in 1963 after three months and the editors convicted of obscenity, later overturned. Neville and his co-editor, Martin Sharp, moved to London and set up ''Oz'' there. When Neville met Greer again, he suggested she write for it, which led to her article in the first edition in 1967, "In Bed with the English". Keith Morris photographed her ("Dr G, the only groupie with a PhD in captivity") for issue 19 in early 1969; the black-and-white images include one of her posing for the cover with Vivian Stanshall and another in which she pretends to play the guitar. The July 1970 edition, ''OZ 29'', featured "Germaine Greer knits private parts", an article from ''Oz''s Needlework Correspondent on the hand-knitted Keep it Warm Cock Sock, "a snug corner for a chilly prick". As "Rose Blight", she also wrote a gardening column for '' Private Eye''. In 1969 Greer was co-founder of an Amsterdam-based pornography magazine, '' Suck: The First European Sex Paper'' (1969–1974), along with Bill Daley, Jim Haynes, William Levy,

Heathcote Williams John Henley Heathcote-Williams (15 November 1941 – 1 July 2017), known as Heathcote Williams, was an English poet, actor, political activist and dramatist. He wrote a number of book-length polemical poems including ''Autogeddon'', ''Falling ...

and Jean Shrimpton, the stated purpose of which was to create "a new pornography which would demystify male and female bodies". The first issue was reportedly so offensive that

Special Branch Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and Intelligence (information gathering), intelligence in Policing in the United Kingdom, British, Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, ...

raided its London office in the Arts Lab in

Drury Lane Drury Lane is a street on the boundary between the Covent Garden and Holborn areas of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of London Borough of Camden, Camden and the southern part in the City o ...

and closed its postbox address. According to Beatrice Faust, ''Suck'' published "high misogynist SM content", including a cover illustration, for issue 7, of a man holding a "screaming woman with her legs in the air while another rapes her anally". One of Greer's biographers, Elizabeth Kleinhenz, wrote that almost nothing was off limits for ''Suck'', including descriptions of child abuse, incest and bestiality. Greer's column, "Sucky Fucky" by "Earth Rose", included advice to women about how to look after their genitals and how they ought to taste their vaginal secretions. She published the name of a friend, someone she knew from her time with the Sydney Push and to whom she later dedicated ''The Female Eunuch'': "Anyone who wants group sex in New York and likes fat girls, contact Lillian Roxon." During a 1970 Amsterdam film festival organized by ''Suck'', the judging panel, which included Greer, gave first prize to Bodil Joensen for a film in which a woman has sex with animals. ''Suck'' reproduced one interview with Greer (first published in ''

Screw A screw is an externally helical threaded fastener capable of being tightened or released by a twisting force (torque) to the screw head, head. The most common uses of screws are to hold objects together and there are many forms for a variety ...

'', another pornographic magazine), entitled "I Am a Whore". In parallel with her involvement in ''Suck'', Greer told

Robert Greenfield Robert Greenfield (born 1946) is an American author, journalist and screenwriter. Career Greenfield began his career as a sports writer. He has published book reviews in ''New West'' magazine and ''The New York Times Book Review''. From 1970 to ...

of ''Rolling Stone'' in January 1971 that she was an admirer of the Redstockings, a radical feminist group founded in New York in January 1969 by Ellen Willis and Shulamith Firestone. Criticised by feminists for her involvement with ''Suck'', in May 1971 she told an interviewer for ''Screw'': Greer parted company with ''Suck'' in 1972 when it published a naked photograph of her lying down with her legs over her shoulders and her face peering between her thighs. The photograph had been submitted on the understanding that nude photographs of all the editors would be published in a book about a film festival. She resigned, accusing the other editors of being "counter-revolutionary". Greer said later that her aim in joining the editorial board had been to try to steer ''Suck'' away from exploitative, sadistic pornography.

''The Female Eunuch'' (1970)

Writing

When she began writing for ''Oz'' and ''Suck'', Greer was spending three days a week in her flat in Leamington Spa while she taught at Warwick, two days in Manchester filming, and two days in London in a white-washed bedsit in The Pheasantry on King's Road. When she first moved to London, she had stayed in

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel, was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, broadcasting regularly from ...

's spare room before being invited to take the bedsit in The Pheasantry, a room just under

's; accommodation there was by invitation only. She was also writing ''The Female Eunuch''. On 17 March 1969 she had had lunch in

Golden Square Golden Square, in Soho, the City of Westminster, London, is a mainly hardscaped garden square planted with a few mature trees and raised borders in Central London flanked by classical office buildings. Its four approach ways are north and so ...

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

, with a Cambridge acquaintance, Sonny Mehta of MacGibbon & Kee. When he asked for ideas for new books, she repeated a suggestion of her agent, Diana Crawford, which she had dismissed, that she write about female suffrage. Crawford had suggested that Greer write a book for the 50th anniversary of women (or a portion of them) being given the vote in the UK in 1918. The very idea of it made her angry and she began "raging" about it. "That's the book I want", he said. He advanced her £750 and another £250 when she signed the contract. In a three-page synopsis for Mehta, she wrote: "If Eldridge Cleaver can write a book about the frozen soul of the negro, as part of the progress towards a correct statement of the coloured man's problem, a woman must eventually take steps towards delineating the female condition as she finds it scored upon her sensibility." Explaining why she wanted to write the book, the synopsis continued: "Firstly I suppose it is to expiate my guilt at being an uncle Tom to my sex. I don't like women. I probably share in all the effortless and unconscious contempt that men pour on women." In a note at the time, she described 21 April 1969 as "the day on which my book begins itself, and

Janis Joplin Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most iconic and successful Rock music, rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and her "electric" ...

sings at Albert Hall. Yesterday the title was Strumpet Voluntary—what shall it be today?" She told the ''

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...

'' in July 1969 that the book was nearly finished and would explore, in the reporter's words, "the myth of the ultra-feminine woman which both sexes are fed and which both end up believing". In February 1970, she published an article in ''Oz'', "The Slag-Heap Erupts", which gave a taste of her views to come, namely that women were to blame for their own oppression. "Men don't really like women", she wrote, "and that is really why they don't employ them. Women don't really like women either, and they too can usually be relied on to employ men in preference to women." Several British feminists, including

Angela Carter Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...

, Sheila Rowbotham and Michelene Wandor, responded angrily. Wandor wrote a rejoinder in ''Oz'', "On the end of Servile Penitude: A reply to Germaine's cunt power", arguing that Greer was writing about a feminist movement in which she had played no role and about which she knew nothing.

Publication

Launched at a party attended by editors from ''Oz'', ''The Female Eunuch'' was published in the UK by MacGibbon & Kee on 12 October 1970, dedicated to Lillian Roxon and four other women. The first print run of thousand copies sold out on the first day. Arguing that the suburban, consumerist, nuclear family represses and devitalizes women, the book became an international bestseller and a watershed text in the feminist movement. According to Greer,

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American education science company that provides educational content, software, and services for students and educators across various levels—from K-12 to higher education and professional settings. They produce textbooks, ...

paid $29,000 for the American rights and Bantam $135,000 for the paperback. The Bantam edition called Greer the "Saucy feminist that even men like", quoting ''Life'' magazine, and the book "#1: the ultimate word on sexual freedom". Demand was such when it was first published that it had to be reprinted monthly, and it has never been out of print. Wallace writes about one woman who wrapped it in brown paper and kept it hidden under her shoes, because her husband would not let her read it. By 1998 it had sold over one million copies in the UK alone. The year 1970 was an important one for second-wave feminism. In February 400 women met in

Ruskin College Ruskin College, originally known as Ruskin Hall, Oxford, is a higher education institution and part of the University of West London, in Oxford, England. It is not a Colleges of the University of Oxford, college of Oxford University. Named ...

, Oxford, for Britain's first Women's Liberation Conference. In August

Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended the University of Oxford and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-clas ...

's '' Sexual Politics'' was published in New York; on 26 August the Women's Strike for Equality was held throughout the United States; and on 31 August Millett's portrait by Alice Neel was on the cover of ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine, by which time her book had sold 15,000 copies (although in December ''Time'' deemed her disclosure that she was a lesbian as likely to discourage people from embracing feminism). September and October saw the publication of '' Sisterhood Is Powerful'', edited by

Robin Morgan Robin Morgan (born January 29, 1941) is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key Radical feminism, radical feminist member of the American Feminist movement, Wom ...

, and Shulamith Firestone's '' The Dialectic of Sex''. On 6 March 1971, dressed in a monk's habit, Greer marched through central London with 2,500 women in a Women's Liberation March. By that month ''The Female Eunuch'' had been translated into eight languages and had nearly sold out its second printing. McGraw-Hill published it in the United States on 16 April 1971. The toast of New York, Greer insisted on staying at the

Hotel Chelsea The Hotel Chelsea (also known as the Chelsea Hotel and the Chelsea) is a hotel at 222 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1883 and 1884, the hotel was designed by Philip Hubert in a styl ...

, a haunt of writers and artists, rather than at the Algonquin Hotel where her publisher had booked her; her book launch had to be rescheduled because so many people wanted to attend. A ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' book review described her as " x feet tall, restlessly attractive, with blue-gray eyes and a profile reminiscent of Garbo". Her publishers called her "the most lovable creature to come out of Australia since the koala bear". A

Paladin The Paladins, also called the Twelve Peers (), are twelve legendary knights, the foremost members of Charlemagne's court in the 8th century. They first appear in the medieval (12th century) ''chanson de geste'' cycle of the Matter of France, wh ...

paperback followed, with cover art by British artist John Holmes, influenced by

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgium, Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature ...

, showing a female torso as a suit hanging from a rail, a handle on each hip.

Clive Hamilton Clive Charles Hamilton Order of Australia, AM FRSA (born 12 March 1953) is an Australian public intellectual currently serving as Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) and the Vice-Chancellor' ...

regarded it as "perhaps the most memorable and unnerving book cover ever created".. Likening the torso to "some fibreglass cast on an industrial production line", Christine Wallace wrote that Holmes's first version was a faceless, breastless, naked woman, "unmistakably Germaine ... hair fashionably afro-frizzed, waist-deep in a pile of stylised breasts, presumably amputated in the creation of a 'female eunuch' based on an assumed equivalence of testicles and mammary glands". The book was reissued in 2001 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux at the instigation of Jennifer Baumgardner, a leading third-wave feminist and editor of the publisher's Feminist Classics series. According to Justyna Wlodarczyk, Greer emerged as "the third wave's favorite second-wave feminist".

Arguments

''The Female Eunuch'' explores how a male-dominated world affects a female's sense of self, and how sexist stereotypes undermine female rationality, autonomy, power and sexuality. Its message is that women have to look within themselves for personal liberation before trying to change the world. In a series of chapters in five sections—Body, Soul, Love, Hate and Revolution—Greer describes the stereotypes, myths and misunderstandings that combine to produce the oppression. She summarized the book's position in 2018 as "Do what you want and want what you do ... Don't take it up the arse if you don't want to take it up the arse." Wallace argues that this is a libertarian message, with its background in the Sydney Push, rather than one that rose out of the feminism of the day. The first paragraph stakes out the book's place in feminist historiography (in an earlier draft, the first sentence read: "So far the female liberation movement is tiny, privileged and overrated"): The ''Eunuch'' ends with: "Privileged women will pluck at your sleeve and seek to enlist you in the 'fight' for reforms, but reforms are retrogressive. The old process must be broken, not made new. Bitter women will call you to rebellion, but you have too much to do. What ''will'' you do?" Two of the book's themes already pointed the way to ''Sex and Destiny'' 14 years later, namely that the

nuclear family A nuclear family (also known as an elementary family, atomic family, or conjugal family) is a term for a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single ...

is a bad environment for women and for the raising of children, and that the manufacture of women's sexuality by Western society is demeaning and confining. Girls are feminised from childhood by being taught rules that subjugate them. Later, when women embrace the stereotypical version of adult femininity, they develop a sense of shame about their own bodies, and lose their natural and political autonomy. The result is powerlessness, isolation, a diminished sexuality, and a lack of joy. "Like beasts", she told ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' in March 1971, "who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master's ulterior motives—to be fattened or made docile—women have been cut off from their capacity for action." The book argues that " men have very little idea of how much men hate them", while " n do not themselves know the depth of their hatred."

First-wave feminism First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on De jure, legal issues, primarily on securing women's right to vote. The term is oft ...

had failed in its revolutionary aims. "Reaction is not revolution", she wrote. "It is not a sign of revolution where the oppressed adopt the manners of the oppressors and practice oppression on their own behalf. Neither is it a sign of revolution when women ape men ..." The American feminist Betty Friedan, author of '' The Feminine Mystique'' (1963), wants for women "equality of opportunity within the status quo, free admission to the world of the ulcer and the coronary", she argued. Although Greer's book made no use of autobiographical material, unlike other feminist works at the time, Mary Evans, writing in 2002, viewed Greer's "entire ''oeuvre''" as autobiographical, a struggle for female agency in the face of the powerlessness of the feminine (her mother) against the backdrop of the missing male hero (her father). Reviewing the book for '' The Massachusetts Review'' in 1972, feminist scholar Arlyn Diamond wrote that, while flawed, it was also "intuitively and brilliantly right", but she criticised Greer for her attitude toward women:

Celebrity

Debate with Norman Mailer

In the UK Greer was voted "Woman of the Year" in 1971, and in the US the following year, she was "Playboy Journalist of the Year".. Much in demand, she embraced the celebrity life. On 30 April 1971, in "Dialogue on Women's Liberation" at the

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

in New York, she famously debated

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...

, whose book ''The Prisoner of Sex'' had just been published in response to Kate Millett. Greer presented it as an evening of sexual conquest. She had always wanted to fuck Mailer, she said, and wrote in ''The Listener'' that she "half expected him to blow his head off in 'one last killer come' like

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

." Betty Friedan, Sargent Shriver,

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

and

Stephen Spender Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry ...

sat in the audience, where tickets were $25 a head (c. $155 in 2018), while Greer and Mailer shared the stage with Jill Johnston, Diana Trilling and Jacqueline Ceballos.. Several feminists declined to attend, including Ti-Grace Atkinson,

and

Gloria Steinem Gloria Marie Steinem ( ; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social movement, social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. ...

. Filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker captured the event in the documentary ''Town Bloody Hall'' (1979). Wearing a paisley coat she had cut from a shawl and sewn herself, and sitting with her feet on a park bench, Greer appeared on the cover of ''

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

'' magazine on 7 May 1971, under the title "Saucy Feminist That Even Men Like"; there were five more photographs of her inside. Also in May, she was featured in ''Vogue'' magazine, photographed by

Lord Snowdon Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon (7 March 1930 – 13 January 2017) was a British photographer. He is best known internationally for his portraits of world notables, many of them published in ''Vogue (magazine), Vogu ...

, on the floor in knee-length boots and wearing the same paisley coat. (In 2016 the coat, now in the

National Museum of Australia The National Museum of Australia (NMA), in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''Nation ...

, got its own scholarly article, and the photograph by Lord Snowdon is in the National Portrait Gallery in London.) On 18 May Greer addressed the National Press Club in Washington, the first woman to do so; she was introduced as "an attractive, intelligent, sexually liberated woman". She also appeared on '' The Dick Cavett Show'', and on 14 and 15 June guest-presented two episodes, discussing birth control, abortion and rape. Greer was in a relationship at the time with Tony Gourvish, manager of the British rock band

Family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

, one that began while she was writing ''The Female Eunuch''. Kleinhenz writes that they lived together for a time, but Greer ended up feeling that he was exploiting her celebrity, a sense she developed increasingly with her friends, according to Kleinhenz. In June 1971 she became a columnist for the London ''Sunday Times''. Later that year her journalism took her to Vietnam, where she wrote about " bargirls" made pregnant by American soldiers, and to Bangladesh, where she interviewed women raped by Pakistani soldiers during the 1971

Bangladesh Liberation War The Bangladesh Liberation War (, ), also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, was an War, armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalism, Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in East Pakistan, which res ...

Tuscany

In the summer of 1971, Greer moved to

Cortona Cortona (, ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy. It is the main cultural and artistic centre of the Val di Chiana after Arezzo. Toponymy Cortona is derived from Latin Cortōna, and from Etruscan language, Etr ...

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of 3,660,834 inhabitants as of 2025. The capital city is Florence. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its in ...

, where she rented ''Il Palazzone'', a cottage near the town, then bought a house, ''Pianelli''. She told Richard Neville that she had to spend time away from England because of its tax laws. She spent part of that summer in Porto Cervo, a seaside resort, with

Kenneth Tynan Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Initially making his mark as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised John Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956) and encouraged the emerging wave ...

, artistic director of the

Royal National Theatre The National Theatre (NT), officially the Royal National Theatre and sometimes referred to in international contexts as the National Theatre of Great Britain, is a performing arts venue and associated theatre company located in London, England, ...

, as guests of Michael White, the impresario. The group had dinner one evening with

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She was the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II. ...

and Karim Aga Khan. Greer had arrived with little luggage, and before dinner found her hair had been blown about by the wind on the ferry. Princess Margaret sat Greer down at her dressing table and spent five minutes brushing out her hair. The point of the visit for Greer was to discuss Tynan's commission of a translation of

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

's ''

Lysistrata ''Lysistrata'' ( or ; Attic Greek: , ''Lysistrátē'', ) is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city ...

''. First performed in 411 BCE, the play explores an attempt by women to force the end of the

Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

by going on sex strike. The project was not produced; Greer and Tynan fell out during the trip, and Greer left Porto Cervo in tears.Dean, Katrina (1 November 2013)
"Why Germaine Greer's life in letters is one for the archives"
''The Conversation''. Her adaptation of the play found belated appreciation in 1999, when the script was re-worked and produced by Phil Willmott as ''Germaine Greer's Lysistrata: The Sex Strike''. Greer has described the freedom she felt at her home in Italy, which had no electricity when she first moved there. While living in Italy, Greer interviewed Primo Levi,

Luciano Pavarotti Luciano Pavarotti (, , ; 12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numerou ...

and her friend and lover

Federico Fellini Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He is known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and ...

. In or around July 1971 Greer was interviewed by Nat Lehrman, a member of ''

''s editorial board, who flew from the United States to Italy to conduct the interview in her home. ''Playboy'' published the article in January 1972: "Germaine Greer – a Candid Conversation with the Ballsy Author of ''The Female Eunuch''". It was during this interview that she first discussed publicly that she had been raped in her second year at the University of Melbourne. Busy with her journalism and publicity tours, she resigned her teaching position at Warwick that year. In March 1972, she was arrested in New Zealand for saying "bullshit" and "fuck" in a speech during a tour, which she had done deliberately because Tim Shadbolt (who would later be elected mayor of

Invercargill Invercargill ( , ) is the southernmost and westernmost list of cities in New Zealand, city in New Zealand, and one of the Southernmost settlements, southernmost cities in the world. It is the commercial centre of the Southland Region, Southlan ...

in 1993) had recently been arrested for the same thing. Six hundred people gathered outside the court, throwing jelly beans and eggs at the police. After defending herself, she was "acquitted on 'bullshit' but convicted for 'fuck'", Kleinhenz writes. Given a jail sentence, she offered to pay a fine instead, then left the country without paying it. In August 1973 Greer debated William F. Buckley Jr. at the Cambridge Union on the motion "This House Supports the Women's Liberation Movement". "Nothing I said", Buckley wrote in 1989, "and memory reproaches me for having performed miserably, made any impression or any dent in the argument. She carried the house overwhelmingly." Greer, then 37, had an affair in 1976 with the novelist

Martin Amis Sir Martin Louis Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter and critic. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and '' London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Mem ...

, then 26, which was discussed publicly in 2015 after she sold her archives to the University of Melbourne. In them Margaret Simons discovered a 30,000-word letter to Amis which Greer had begun writing on 1 March 1976 while in the British Airways Monarch lounge at Heathrow Airport, and continued during a lecture tour in the United States, though apparently never sent: "As the miles add up, I find this letter harder and harder to write. My style falters and whole paragraphs emerge as dry as powder. Yesterday I left this book in a taxi cab and would have lost it if the driver hadn't driven back ... with it. As for you, my darling, I see you very rarely. Even in my dreams you send me only your handmaidens."

Tulsa

Greer's second book, ''The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work'' (1979), covered its subject until the end of the 19th century, and speculated on the existence of female artists whose careers were not recorded. That year Greer was appointed director of the Center of the Study of Women's Literature at the

, Oklahoma, and in 1982 she founded the ''Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature'', an academic journal that highlights unknown or little-known women writers. In the first issue Greer wrote that she wanted the journal to focus on the "rehabilitation of women's literary history". She would spend five months a year in Tulsa and the rest in the UK. She continued working as a journalist. In 1984 she travelled to

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

to report on the 1983–1985 famine for the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

'' and again in April 1985 for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

''. For the latter, she took photographs with an Olympus automatic camera and drove 700 km to

Asosa Asosa or Assosa is the capital of Benishangul-Gumuz Region, Ethiopia. Located in the Asosa Zone, this town has a latitude and longitude of , with an elevation of 1,570 meters. History According to the Dutch explorer Juan Maria Schuver, who vi ...

, a city to which the

Ethiopian government The government of Ethiopia () is the federal government of Ethiopia. It is structured in a framework of a federal republic, federal parliamentary system, parliamentary republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, prime minister is the hea ...

was moving people from the famine areas. The ''Observer'' did not publish the two 5,000-word articles she submitted; in her view, the editors did not agree with her pro Mengistu government perspective. '' The New Worker'' published them instead. In September 1985 she travelled again to Ethiopia, this time to present a documentary for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

in the UK.

''Sex and Destiny'' (1984)

''Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility'' (1984) continued Greer's critique of Western attitudes toward sexuality,

fertility Fertility in colloquial terms refers the ability to have offspring. In demographic contexts, fertility refers to the actual production of offspring, rather than the physical capability to reproduce, which is termed fecundity. The fertility rate ...

, and family, and the imposition of those attitudes on the rest of the world. Her targets again include the nuclear family, government intervention in sexual behaviour, and the commercialisation of sexuality and women's bodies. She argued that the Western promotion of birth control in the Third World was in large part driven not by concern for human welfare but by the traditional fear and envy of the rich towards the fertility of the poor. The birth control movement had been tainted by such attitudes from its beginning, she wrote, citing

Marie Stopes Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (15 October 1880 – 2 October 1958) was a British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for Eugenic feminism, eugenics and women's rights. She made significant contributions to plant palaeontology and co ...

and others. She cautioned against condemning life styles and family values in the developing world.

Great Chesterford

In 1984 Greer bought The Mills, a Georgian farmhouse on three acres of land in Great Chesterford, Essex, England, where she planted a one-acre wood, which she said made her prouder than anything else she had done, and tried to keep "as a refuge for as many other earthlings" as she could. The Mills was still Greer's home for part of the year when she put it up for sale in 2018;Greer, Germaine (11 March 2018)
"Germaine Greer offers advice for the next owner of her Essex home"
''The Sunday Times''.
as of 2016 she was spending four months a year in Australia and the rest in the UK. Germaine Greer and Lewis Wolpert on After Dark on 30 May 1994

Germaine Greer and Lewis Wolpert on After Dark on 30 May 1994

Her book ''Shakespeare'' (her PhD topic) was published in 1986 by Oxford University Press as part of its Past Masters series. ''The Madwoman's Underclothes: Essays and Occasional Writings'', a collection of her articles written between 1968 and 1985, also appeared that year. In June 1988, along with

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A List of Nobel laureates in Literature, Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramat ...

Antonia Fraser Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, (; born 27 August 1932) is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and prior to h ...

Ian McEwan Ian Russell McEwan (born 21 June 1948) is a British novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of the ...

, Margaret Drabble,

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern wor ...

, David Hare and others, she became part of the "20th of June Group", which supported civil liberties in England that the group felt were being eroded; this was shortly after Section 28 was introduced, which prevented schools from teaching homosexuality as a normal part of family life. In 1989 she wrote '' Daddy, We Hardly Knew You'', a diary and travelogue about her father, whom Greer portrayed as distant, weak and unaffectionate, which led to the criticism that in her writing she was projecting her relationship with him onto all other men. She became a special lecturer and bye-fellow that year of Newnham College, Cambridge, a position she held until 1998. Greer founded Stump Cross Books, based at The Mills, which published the work of 17th- and 18th-century female poets. She returned to the University of Warwick, accepting a personal Chair as Professor in the English and Comparative Studies department. She was appearing regularly on television in the UK and Australia during this period, including on the BBC's '' Have I Got News for You'' several times from 1990. On 22 July 1995 she was interviewed at length by Andrew Neil on his one-on-one interview show ''Is This Your Life?'' In 1998 she wrote an episode, "Make Love not War", for the television documentary series ''

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

'', and the following year sat for a nude photograph by the Australian photographer Polly Borland. A 1994 interview with Greer in ''

The Big Issue ''The Big Issue'' is a United Kingdom–based street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. ''The Big Issue'' is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer ho ...

'', in which she said she would share her home with anyone willing to follow her rules, was interpreted as an open invitation to the homeless, and led to her being swamped by reporters and low-flying aircraft. One of the journalists, an undercover ''

Mail on Sunday ''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. Founded in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first published i ...

'' reporter, managed to gain entry and avail himself of her hospitality for two days, which included Greer washing his clothes and teaching him how to bake bread. After the newspaper published a three-page spread, the

Press Complaints Commission The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Ind ...

found it guilty of subterfuge not in the public interest.

Later writing about women

''The Change'' (1991 and 2018)

Natalie Angier, writing in ''

'', called ''The Change: Women, Ageing, and the Menopause'' (1991) a "brilliant, gutsy, exhilarating, exasperating fury of a book ... tantalizingly close to being a potential feminist classic on a par with ''The Female Eunuch''." In it, Greer writes of the myths about

menopause Menopause, also known as the climacteric, is the time when Menstruation, menstrual periods permanently stop, marking the end of the Human reproduction, reproductive stage for the female human. It typically occurs between the ages of 45 and 5 ...

—or as she prefers to call it the "climacteric", or critical period. "Frightening females is fun", she wrote in ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'' in 2002. "Women were frightened into using

hormone replacement therapy Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. Effects of menopause can include symptoms such ...

by dire predictions of crumbling bones,

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes: coronary artery diseases (e.g. angina pectoris, angina, myocardial infarction, heart attack), heart failure, ...

, loss of

libido In psychology, libido (; ) is psychic drive or energy, usually conceived of as sexual in nature, but sometimes conceived of as including other forms of desire. The term ''libido'' was originally developed by Sigmund Freud, the pioneering origin ...

, depression, despair, disease and death if they let nature take its course." She argues that scaring women is "big business and hugely profitable". The book, including the medical information, was updated and reissued in 2018.

''Slip-Shod Sibyls'' (1995)

''Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet'' (1995) is an account of women who wrote poetry in English before 1900, and an examination of why so few have been admitted to the literary canon. Her conclusion is that women were held to lower standards than men (hence the "slip-shod" sibyls of the title, quoting

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early ...

), and the poetic tradition discouraged good poetry from women. The book includes a critique of the concept of woman as

Muse In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the Muses (, ) were the Artistic inspiration, inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric p ...

, associated with

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were b ...

and others; a chapter on

Sappho Sappho (; ''Sapphṓ'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; ) was an Ancient Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sapph ...

and her use as a symbol of female poetry; a chapter on the 17th-century poet Katherine Philips; two chapters on

Aphra Behn Aphra Behn (; baptism, bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration (England), Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writ ...

and one on Anne Wharton; and material on Anne Finch, Letitia Landon and

Christina Rossetti Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English writer of romanticism, romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well k ...

. It includes an epilogue on 20th-century female poets and their propensity for suicide: "Too many of the most conspicuous figures in women's poetry of the 20th century not only destroyed themselves in a variety of ways but are valued for poetry that documents that process."

''The Whole Woman'' (1999)

A sequel to ''The Female Eunuch'', ''The Whole Woman'' was published in 1999 by Doubleday, one of seven publishers who bid for the book; Greer was paid an advance of £500,000. In the book Greer argued that feminism had lost its way. Women still faced the same physical realities as before, but because of changing views about gender identity and post-modernism, there is a "new silence about omen'svisceral experiences

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

is the same old rapist's hand clamped across their mouths". She wrote: "Real women are being phased out; the first step, persuading them to deny their own existence, is almost complete." Her comments on

female genital mutilation Female genital mutilation (FGM) (also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision) is the cutting or removal of some or all of the vulva for non-medical reasons. Prevalence of female ge ...

(FGM) proved controversial, particularly that opposition to it is an "attack on cultural identity", just as outlawing male circumcision would be viewed as an attack on Jews and Muslims. Greer wrote that feminists fighting to eliminate FGM in their own countries should be supported, but she explored the complexities of the issue and the double standards of the West regarding other forms of bodily mutilation, including that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended surgery at that time on baby girls with clitorises over three-eighths of an inch long. She questioned the view that FGM is imposed by men on women, rather than by women on women, or even freely chosen.

On gender

Sex-gender distinction

In ''The Whole Woman'', Greer argued that, while sex is a biological given,

gender role A gender role, or sex role, is a social norm deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their gender or sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity. The specifics regarding these gendered ...

s are cultural constructs.

Femininity Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

is not

female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

ness. "Genuine femaleness remains grotesque to the point of obscenity", she wrote. Girls and women are taught femininity—learning to speak softly, wear certain clothes, remove body hair to please men, and so on—a process of conditioning that begins at birth and continues throughout the entire life span. "There is nothing feminine about being pregnant", she told

Krishnan Guru-Murthy Krishnan Guru-Murthy (born 5 April 1970) is a British journalist. He is the lead presenter of ''Channel 4 News''. He also presents ''Unreported World'', a foreign-affairs documentary series. Early life Guru-Murthy's father, an Indian consulta ...

in 2018. "It's almost the antithesis of that. There's nothing feminine about giving birth. It's a bloody struggle, and you've got to be strong and brave. There's nothing feminine about breastfeeding. God knows it drives everybody mad; they want to see nice big pumped-up tits, but they don't want to see them doing their job."

Transgender identity

In a 1989 issue of the Independent, she published "On Why Sex Change is a Lie", an essay in which she recalled a 1971 encounter with someone she perceived as a trans woman. She referred to this person as "it" and "him"; called her a "gross parody of my sex" who should not be allowed to "come to the lavatory with me" or possess a "female passport"; and said that when this person "grabbed my hand" to say "thank you," she did so with a "paw" with a "rapist's grip." In 1997, she said it was "disgraceful" that Newnham College had recently granted a fellowship to physicist Rachael Padman, a

trans woman A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their ...

who had transitioned in the early 1980s during her PhD. Cambridge University explained that, "since the early 1970s", whenever the university was aware of someone requesting privacy for their gender transition, it had been a university-wide practice for the administration to maintain their privacy and respect the gender in which they lived. Greer argued that since Padman had been born male, the women-only college had "driven a coach and horses through our statutes" by admitting her. In 1999, in a chapter in ''The Whole Woman'' entitled "Pantomime Dames", she wrote: "Governments that consist of very few women have hurried to recognise as women, men who believe that they are women and have had themselves castrated to prove it, because they see women not as another sex but as a non-sex." She reiterated her views several times over the following years, including in 2015 when students at

Cardiff University Cardiff University () is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893. It was renamed Unive ...

tried unsuccessfully to "no platform" her to stop her from speaking on "Women & Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century". Greer responded by reaffirming, during an interview with Kirsty Wark for BBC '' Newsnight'', that she did not regard transgender women as women; she argued that the nomination of Caitlyn Jenner for Glamour Woman of the Year had been misogynist. Over 130 academics and others signed a letter to ''

'' in 2015 objecting to the use of no-platform policies against Greer and feminists with similar views; signatories included Beatrix Campbell, Mary Beard, Deborah Cameron, Catherine Hall, Liz Kelly, Ruth Lister, and the Southall Black Sisters.

On rape

Arguments

Greer wrote in ''The Female Eunuch'' (1970) that

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...

is not the "expression of uncontrollable desire" but an act of "murderous aggression, spawned in self-loathing and enacted upon the hated other". She has argued since at least the 1990s that the criminal justice system's approach to rape is male-centred, treating female victims as evidence rather than complainants, and reflecting that women were once regarded as male property. "Historically, the crime of rape was committed not against the woman but against the man with an interest in her, her father or her husband", she wrote in 1995. "What had to be established beyond doubt was that she had not collaborated with the man who usurped another's right. If she had, the penalty, which might have been

stoning Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times. Stoning appears t ...

or pressing to death, was paid by her." Rape is not the worst thing that can happen to a woman, she writes; if a woman allows a man to have sex with her to avoid a beating, then arguably she fears the beating more. A woman who has been raped has no reason to feel shame (and therefore no need for anonymity), and a female-centred view of rape will not fashion it as something that can "ruin" a woman. "She may be outraged and humiliated", Greer writes, "but she cannot be damaged in any essential way by the simple fact of the presence of an unwelcome penis in her vagina." If a woman feels she has been destroyed by such an attack, "it is because you've been told lies about who and what you are", she argued in 2018. She suggested in 1995 that the crime of rape be replaced by one of

sexual assault Sexual assault is an act of sexual abuse in which one intentionally Physical intimacy, sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or Coercion, coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their w ...

with varying degrees of seriousness and swifter outcomes. In 2018 she said she had changed her mind about calling rape "sexual assault", because most rape (in particular, sex without consent within marriage) is not accompanied by physical violence. "There is no way that the law of rape fits the reality of women's lives", she said in 2018. Her book, ''On Rape'', was published by

Melbourne University Press Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) is the book publishing arm of the University of Melbourne. The press is currently a member of the Association of University Presses. History MUP was founded in 1922 as Melbourne University Press to sell text ...

in September 2018.

Personal experience

During an interview with ''Playboy'' in 1971, and again during an interview with Clyde Packer in the 1980s, Greer discussed how she had been raped as an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne. Two weeks after her March 1995 ''Guardian'' column about rape provoked controversy, she again recalled her own experience, which took place in January 1958 when she was 19. A rugby player she had met at a barbecue dragged her into a car, punched her several times in the head, forced her to repeat what he wanted her to say, then raped her. Afterwards, he walked back to the party as though nothing had happened. Her male flatmates found her at home hours later, bruised, swollen and semi-conscious. She believed that reporting it would be pointless; she had danced with him at the party, had left with him voluntarily, and he was a pillar of the community. The flatmates brought the man to the flat days later and warned him in front of her that they would break his legs if they saw him at any of the places they frequented. She argued, in two ''Guardian'' columns, that it was not the rapist's penis that had hurt her, but his fists and "vicious mind", and the loss of control, invasion of self, and "being made to speak the rapist's script". "To insist", she wrote, "that outrage by penis is worse than outrage by any other means is to glorify and magnify that tag of flesh beyond reason." She suggested that perhaps women should "out" their rapists rather than take a chance with a legal system that does not work for them. Her views were strongly criticised by Women Against Rape, which at the time was campaigning for more prosecutions.

Me Too movement

Greer has commented several times on the

Me Too movement #MeToo is a social movement and Consciousness raising, awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture, in which women publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was init ...

. In November 2017, she called for women to show solidarity when other women are sexually harassed. Just before she was named Australian of the Year in Britain in January 2018, she said she had always wanted to see women react immediately to sexual harassment, as it occurs. "What makes it different is when the man has economic power, as

Harvey Weinstein Harvey Weinstein (, ; born March 19, 1952) is an American film producer and convicted sex offender. In 1979, Weinstein and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent ...

has. But if you spread your legs because he said 'be nice to me and I'll give you a job in a movie' then I'm afraid that's tantamount to consent, and it's too late now to start whingeing about that." In May that year, she argued—of the high-profile cases—that disclosure was "dishonourable" because women who "claim to have been outraged 20 years ago" had been paid to sign

non-disclosure agreement A non-disclosure agreement (NDA), also known as a confidentiality agreement (CA), confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), proprietary information agreement (PIA), or secrecy agreement (SA), is a legal contract or part of a contract between at le ...

s, but then had spoken out once the

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...

had lapsed and they had nothing to lose.

Other work

''The Boy'' (2003)

A book of art history, ''The Boy'' (2003)—published in the United States as ''The Beautiful Boy''—was illustrated with 200 photographs of what ''The Observer'' called "succulent teenage male beauty".Merritt, Stephanie (5 October 2003)
"Danger mouth"
''The Observer''. Greer described the book as an attempt to address modern women's apparent indifference to the teenage boy as a sexual object and to "advance women's reclamation of their capacity for, and right to, visual pleasure". The cover photograph, by David Bailey, was of 15-year-old

Björn Andrésen Björn Johan Andrésen (born 26 January 1955) is a Swedish actor and musician. He is best known for playing the 14-year-old Tadzio in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of the 1912 Thomas Mann novella '' Death in Venice''. He also played a ...

in his character of Tadzio in the film '' Death in Venice'' (1971). The actor complained about Greer's use of the photograph, saying it was used without his permission and was disturbed by the contents of the book. He stated "Adult love for adolescents is something that I am against in principle... Emotionally perhaps, and intellectually, I am disturbed by it—because I have some insight into what this kind of love is about." Some writers characterised the book's nature as paedophilic, with Greer herself admitting that she expected to be called a paedophile after publication.

"Whitefella Jump Up" (2003)

Greer has published several essays on Aboriginal issues, including "Whitefella Jump Up: The Shortest Way to Nationhood", first published in '' Quarterly Essay'' in August 2003, and later as a book in the UK. In the essay she wrote that she had understood little about Aboriginal issues in her early years, but in England she saw from the perspective of distance that "what was operating in Australia was

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

". On returning to Australia in late 1971 she made an effort "to see as much as I could of what had been hidden from me", travelling through the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

with activist Bobbi Sykes. Greer argued that Australians should re-imagine the country as an Aboriginal nation. "Jump up" in Australian Kriol can, she wrote, mean "to be resurrected or reborn"; the title refers to occasions when Aborigines apparently accepted whites as reincarnated relatives. Suggesting that whites were mistaken in understanding this literally, she argued that Aborigines were offering whites terms on which they could be accepted into the Aboriginal kinship system. The essay argues that it may not be too late for Australia as a nation to root itself in Aboriginal history and culture. She wrote: Greer's essay ''On Rage'' (2008) dealt with the widespread rage of Indigenous men. Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton argued that she was making excuses for bad behaviour. Greer returned that year to Newnham College, Cambridge, as a special supervisor.

''White Beech'' (2013)

In 2001 Greer bought of land in Australia for $500,000 at Cave Creek in the Numinbah Valley, near the Natural Bridge section of Springbrook National Park in

South East Queensland South East Queensland (SEQ) is a Bioregion, bio-geographical, Megalopolis, metropolitan and Statistics, statistical Regions of Queensland, region of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of ...

. Formerly rainforest, the land had been used as a dairy farm, banana plantation and timber source. In 2013 she published ''White Beech: The Rainforest Years'' about her Cave Creek Rainforest Rehabilitation Scheme, her effort to restore the land to its pre-European-settler state. Friends of Gondwana Rainforest, a charity Greer registered in England in 2011, funds and oversees the project. Germaine Greer Sydney Writers Walk plaque

Germaine Greer Sydney Writers Walk plaque

The book describes about how she discovered an uncommon White Beech tree ('' Gmelina leichhardtii''), and that the chemical 2,4,5-T (an

Agent Orange Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the tactical uses of Rainbow Herbicides. It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1971. T ...

ingredient) had been sprayed in the area for years to thin the hardwood and control the weeds. She wrote that "entering fully into the multifarious life that is Earthling's environment, while giving up delusions of controlling it, is a transcendental experience". Her sense of space, time and self changed: "My horizons flew away, my notion of time expanded and deepened, and my self disappeared." Although she divides time between Australia and England annually, she will not settle permanently in Australia until the country has a treaty with its indigenous people.

Awards and honours

Greer has received several honorary doctorates: a Doctor of Letters from

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

in 1999, a Doctor of Laws from the University of Melbourne in 2003, a Doctor of Letters at

Anglia Ruskin University Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public research university in the region of East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins date back to the Cambridge School of Art (CSA), founded by William John Beamont, a Fellow of Trinity College at the Unive ...

in 2003, and a Doctor of Letters from the University of Sydney in 2005. The National Portrait Gallery in London has purchased eight photographs of Greer, including by Bryan Wharton,

and Polly Borland, and one painting by Paula Rego. She was selected as an Australian National Living Treasure (Australia), National Living Treasure in 1997, and in 2001 was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women. In 2011 she was one of four feminist "Australian legends" (along with Eva Cox, Elizabeth Evatt and Anne Summers) represented on Australian postage stamps. In the UK she was voted "Woman of the Year" in 1971, and in 2016 BBC Radio 4's ''Woman's Hour'' placed her fourth on its annual "Power List" of seven women who had the biggest impact on women's lives over the previous 70 years, alongside (in order) Margaret Thatcher, Helen Brook, Barbara Castle, Jayaben Desai, Bridget Jones, and Beyoncé.

Controversial views

Writer Yvonne Roberts referred to Greer as "the contrarian queen". Sarah Ditum wrote that Greer "doesn't get into trouble occasionally or inadvertently, but consistently and with the attitude of a tank rolling directly into a crowd of infantry". ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' has labelled her a "human headline". British actor and comedian Tracey Ullman has portrayed Greer as an elderly woman picking fights at bus stops. In response to criticism of Greer, Polly Toynbee wrote in 1988: "Small minds, small spirits affronted by the sheer size and magnetism of the woman." Greer said that the The Satanic Verses controversy, 1989 fatwa against

for his novel ''The Satanic Verses'' (1988) was his own fault, although she also added her name that year to a petition in his support. In 2006, she supported activists trying to halt the filming in London's Brick Lane of the film ''Brick Lane (2007 film), Brick Lane'' (based on Monica Ali's novel of the same name) because, she wrote, "a proto-Bengali writer with a Muslim name" had portrayed Bengali Muslims as "irreligious and disorderly". Rushdie called her comments "philistine, sanctimonious, and disgraceful, but ... not unexpected". In May 1995, in her column for ''

'' (which the newspaper refused), she referred to ''Guardian'' journalist Suzanne Moore's "bird's nest hair" and "fuck-me shoes". She called her biographer, Christine Wallace, a "flesh-eating bacterium" and Wallace's book, ''Untamed Shrew'' (1999), "a piece of excrement". (She has said "I fucking hate biography. If you want to know about Charles Dickens, Dickens, read his fucking books.") Australia, she said in 2004, was a "cultural wasteland"; the Australian prime minister, John Howard, called her remarks patronising and condescending. After receiving a fee of £40,000, she left the ''Celebrity Big Brother (British series 3), Celebrity Big Brother'' house on day six in 2005 because, she wrote, it was a squalid "fascist prison camp". Kevin Rudd, later Australia's prime minister, told her to "stick a sock in it" in 2006, when, in a column about the death of Australian Steve Irwin, star of ''The Crocodile Hunter'', she concluded that the animal world had "finally taken its revenge". She criticised the wife of the newly elected American president Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, for her dress on the night of the U.S. presidential election, 2008, 2008 U.S. election, and in 2012 she advised Australia's first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, to change the cut of her jackets because she had "a big arse". On Andrew Denton's television talk show ''Enough Rope'', Denton quoted Greer as having said to the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' that, "A woman of taste is a pederast—boys rather than men", a quote she confirmed.

Later life

In June 2022 Germaine Greer was among the women highlighted in the Australian Women Changemakers exhibition at the Museum of Australian Democracy. In 2021, Greer returned to Australia to sell her home and put herself into aged care in Castlemaine, Victoria. She stayed 10 months and left in April 2022 to live with her brother. She described herself as having been "not a patient, but an inmate" at the aged-care home. She noted that more women are in care than men and said residential aged care was a pressing feminist issue.

Germaine Greer archive

Greer sold her archive in 2013 to the University of Melbourne. As of June 2018 it covers the period 1959–2010, filling 487 archive boxes on 82 metres of shelf space. The transfer of the archive (150 filing-cabinet drawers) from Greer's home in England began in July 2014; the university announced that it was raising to fund the purchase, shipping, housing, cataloguing and digitising. Greer said that her receipt from the sale would be donated to her charity, Friends of Gondwana Rainforest. Index cards that contain Greer family tree information, compiled when she was researching her book Daddy, We Hardly Knew You, are held by the State Library of Victoria.

Selected works

*(1963). *(1968). *(1970). '' The Female Eunuch''. London: MacGibbon & Kee. *(1979) as Rose Blight. ''The Revolting Garden''. HarperCollins. *(1979). ''The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work''. London: Martin Secker and Warburg. *(1984). ''Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility''. London: Harper & Row. *(1986). ''Shakespeare''. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Past Masters series). *(1986). ''The Madwoman's Underclothes: Essays and Occasional Writings''. London: Picador. *(1988) with Susan Hastings, Jeslyn Medoff, Melinda Sansone (eds). ''Kissing the Rod: An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Women's Verse''. London: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. *(1989). '' Daddy, We Hardly Knew You''. New York: Fawcett Columbine. *(1989) (ed.). ''The Uncollected Verse of Aphra Behn''. London: Stump Cross Books. *(1990) with Ruth Little (eds). ''The Collected Works of Katherine Philips: The Matchless Orinda'', Volume III, ''The Translations''. London: Stump Cross Books. *(1991). "The Offstage Mob: Shakespeare's Proletariat", in Tetsuo Kishi, Roger Pringle, and Stanley Wells (eds). ''Shakespeare and Cultural Traditions''. Newark: University of Delaware Press, pp. 54–75. *(1991). ''The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause''. London: Hamish Hamilton. *(1994). "Macbeth: Sin and Action of Grace", in J. Wain (ed.). ''Shakespeare: Macbeth''. London: Macmillan, pp. 263–270. *(1995). ''Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet''. Viking. *(1997) with Susan Hastings (eds). ''The Surviving Works of Anne Wharton''. London: Stump Cross Books. *(1999). ''The Whole Woman''. London: Doubleday. * (2000). ''Lysistrata - The Sex Strike''. London: Aurora Metro Books (with Phil Willmott). *(2000). ''John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester''. London: Northcote House Publishers. *(2001) (ed.). ''101 Poems by 101 Women''. London: Faber & Faber. *(2003). '' The Boy''. London: Thames & Hudson. *(2003) (ed.). ''Poems for Gardeners''. London: Virago. *(2004). ''Whitefella Jump Up: The Shortest Way to Nationhood''. London: Profile Books (first published 2003 in ''Quarterly Essay''). *(2007). ''Shakespeare's Wife''. London: Bloomsbury. *(2007). ''Stella Vine''. Oxford: Modern Art Oxford. *(2008). "Shakespeare and the Marriage Contract", in Paul Raffield, Gary Watt (eds). ''Shakespeare and the Law''. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 51–64. *(2008). ''On Rage''. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. *(2011) with Phil Willmott. ''Lysistrata: The Sex Strike: After Aristophanes''. Samuel French Limited. *(2013). '' White Beech: The Rainforest Years''. London: Bloomsbury. *(2018). ''On Rape''. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Sources

Notes

References

Works cited

:''Websites and news articles are listed in the #References, References section only.'' * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (Edited extract from ''White Beech'') * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* *
The University of Melbourne Archives
*, University of Melbourne, 8 March 2017. * * *, Talks & Ideas, Sydney Opera House, 9 October 2013. * *, Leeds Beckett University, March 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Greer, Germaine 1939 births 20th-century atheists 21st-century atheists 20th-century Australian non-fiction writers 21st-century Australian non-fiction writers 20th-century Australian women writers 21st-century Australian women writers Academics from Melbourne Academics of the University of Warwick Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge Atheist feminists Australian anarchists Australian atheists Australian conservationists Australian essayists Australian expatriates in England Australian feminist writers Australian socialist feminists Australian women essayists Ecofeminists Fellows of Newnham College, Cambridge Feminist studies scholars Former Roman Catholics Gender-critical feminists Liberal Democrats (UK) people Living people People educated at Star of the Sea College, Melbourne People from Elwood, Victoria Radical feminists Shakespearean scholars University of Melbourne alumni University of Sydney alumni University of Tulsa faculty Women anthologists Writers from Melbourne

Early life and education

Melbourne

University

Melbourne and Sydney

Cambridge

Early career and writing

Teaching, marriage and television

''Oz'' and ''Suck''

''The Female Eunuch'' (1970)

Writing

Publication

Arguments

Celebrity

Debate with Norman Mailer

Tuscany

Tulsa

''Sex and Destiny'' (1984)

Great Chesterford

Later writing about women

''The Change'' (1991 and 2018)

''Slip-Shod Sibyls'' (1995)

''The Whole Woman'' (1999)

On gender

Sex-gender distinction

Transgender identity

On rape

Arguments

Personal experience

Me Too movement

Other work

''The Boy'' (2003)

"Whitefella Jump Up" (2003)

''White Beech'' (2013)

Awards and honours

Controversial views

Later life

Germaine Greer archive

See also

Selected works

Sources

Notes

References

Works cited

External links