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'''Germaine Greer,'''(born 1939), prominent Australian [[feminist]] and academic writer, one of the most influential names in 20th-century "second-wave" feminism.

'''Germaine Greer''' (born 1939) is a prominent Australian [[feminist]] and academic writer, one of the most influential names in 20th-century "second-wave" feminism.

Greer was born in Melbourne, [[Australia]], and went to a convent school, Star of the Sea Convent, Gardenvale. After getting a BA at Melbourne University in 1959 and a Masters degree with first class honors at Sydney University in 1962, she won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Newnham College, [[Cambridge University]], England, where she obtained a Ph.D in in 1967 writing her thesis on Shakespeare's early comedies. Between 1967 and 1972 she lectured in English literature at the University of Warwick.

Greer was born in Melbourne, [[Australia]], and went to a convent school, Star of the Sea Convent, Gardenvale. After getting a BA at Melbourne University in 1959 and a Masters degree with first class honors at Sydney University in 1962, she won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Newnham College, [[Cambridge University]], England, where she obtained a Ph.D in in 1967 writing her thesis on Shakespeare's early comedies. Between 1967 and 1972 she lectured in English literature at the University of Warwick.

The book had little in common with the grass roots movement in the UK at the time, which was more concerned with issues such as obtaining equal pay for women working at the Ford factory in Dagenham. [[London]].<ref> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/made-in-dagenham-a-1968-strike-led-to-equal-pay-for-women-2077177.html</ref>  

The book had little in common with the grass roots movement in the UK at the time, which was more concerned with issues such as obtaining equal pay for women working at the Ford factory in Dagenham. [[London]].<ref> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/made-in-dagenham-a-1968-strike-led-to-equal-pay-for-women-2077177.html</ref>  

Many feminists were not convinced that sleeping with more different male partners would make women any more free, but the book was a press sensation and ensured that Greer became a celebrity for the rest of her life, frequently asked to speak in public or on television, and commanding high fees for doing so.

Many feminists were not convinced that sleeping with more different male partners would make women any freer, but the book was a press sensation and ensured that Greer became a celebrity for the rest of her life, frequently asked to speak in public or on television, and commanding high fees for doing so.

In the years that followed, Greer widened the gap between herself and the admittedly very fragmented and miscellaneous feminist movement. She was an indefatigable self-publicist, and while leading American feminists (such as Kate Millett) were critical of pornography and prostitution, Greer became a champion of permissiveness. She appeared at porn festivals where films of group sex, bestiality etc were displayed, and allowed a magazine to print a photograph of her nude, grinning between her raised legs over the top of her bare groin. She was active in struggles against censorship, contributing to the Australian magazine OZ and in 1972 appearing for the defense in two obscenity trials in Australia.  

In the years that followed, Greer widened the gap between herself and the admittedly very fragmented and miscellaneous feminist movement. She was an indefatigable self-publicist, and while leading American feminists (such as Kate Millett) were critical of pornography and prostitution, Greer became a champion of permissiveness. She appeared at porn festivals where films of group sex, bestiality etc were displayed, and allowed a magazine to print a photograph of her nude, grinning between her raised legs over the top of her bare groin. She was active in struggles against censorship, contributing to the Australian magazine OZ and in 1972 appearing for the defense in two obscenity trials in Australia.  

''The Obstacle Race,'' her second book, published in 1979, examined the work of several distinguished women painters of the past, in the light of the difficulties they had faced working in a man's profession. Though the topic is a very worthy one, and the book coincided with the arrival of [[Women's Studies]] as an academic subject, is was hampered by the fact that Greer was not an art historian by academic training.

''The Obstacle Race,'' her second book, published in 1979, examined the work of several distinguished women painters of the past, in the light of the difficulties they had faced working in a man's profession. Though the topic is a very worthy one, and the book coincided with the arrival of [[Women's Studies]] as an academic subject, is was hampered by the fact that Greer was not an art historian by academic training.

Greer's third book ''Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility'' (1984), bewildered readers by appearing to go back on everything she had said in ''The Female Eunuch.'' While she had denounced the Western "nuclear family" as oppressive, she now decided to idealize and defend the Asiatic extended family, in which women are sent into early, arranged marriages, are expected to do all the housework, and have up to fifteen children, while facing disgrace and shame if they are divorced. She herself had never lived in an extended family (unless we count her affair with the married author Martin Amis) <ref>https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/17/revealed-germaine-greers-30000-word-love-letter-to-martin-amis-a-lover-who-left-her-helpless-with-desire</ref>, but she decided that they were underrated. Having touted for a permissive lifestyle premised on the availability of contraception and abortion for relatively rich women, she now deplored government programs offering birth control to populations so poor that most of their children were dying of starvation. She offered some surprising arguments for artificial birth control being unnecessary (even suggesting some alternatives rather too indecent to mention here). The same author who had belittled tradition in the West now argued that we must not destroy traditional cultures and ways of life. In the intervals of idealizing Third World poverty and deploring Western materialism, she could always go back to spend a few months at her villa in Tuscany.

Greer's third book ''Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility'' (1984), bewildered readers by appearing to go back on everything she had said in ''The Female Eunuch.'' While she had denounced the Western "nuclear family" as oppressive, she now decided to idealize and defend the Asiatic extended family, in which women are sent into early, arranged marriages, are expected to do all the housework, and have up to fifteen children, while facing disgrace and shame if they are divorced. She herself had never lived in an extended family (unless we count her affair with the married author Martin Amis) <ref>https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/17/revealed-germaine-greers-30000-word-love-letter-to-martin-amis-a-lover-who-left-her-helpless-with-desire</ref>, but she decided that they were underrated. Having touted for a permissive lifestyle premised on the availability of contraception and abortion for relatively rich women, she now deplored government programs offering birth control to populations so poor that most of their children were dying of starvation. She offered some surprising arguments for artificial birth control being unnecessary (even suggesting some alternatives rather too indecent to mention here). The same author who had belittled tradition in the West now argued that we must not destroy traditional cultures and ways of life. In the intervals of idealizing Third World poverty and deploring Western materialism, she could always go back to spend a few months at her villa in Tuscany.

In 1989 Greer became a special lecturer and unofficial fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge University. In the same year, she brought out what is possibly her best book, "Daddy, we hardly knew you" <ref>"Daddy, we hardly knew you" by Germaine Greer, Hamish Hamilton, 312 pp, £13.95, March 1989, ISBN 0 241 12538 3.</ref> In this book she describes her childhood, in which her father was almost entirely absent. He left to serve in [[World War II]] when she was aged four, and even when he returned he was a cold and vacant man, withdrawn, with many secrets. Greer tracked down her father and inadvertently revealed in the book that she was a person who had lacked, in her childhood, any model of a close or warm marital relationship between a mother and father. She came from a broken family. This leaves room to speculate that her disdain for marriage and love was derived from her own emotional limitation. What she called liberation and revolution may simply have been a personal inadequacy.

In 1989 Greer became a special lecturer and unofficial fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge University. In the same year, she brought out what is possibly her best book, "Daddy, we hardly knew you" <ref>"Daddy, we hardly knew you" by Germaine Greer, Hamish Hamilton, 312 pp, £13.95, March 1989, ISBN 0 241 12538 3.</ref> In this book she describes her childhood, in which her father was almost entirely absent. He left to serve in [[World War II]] when she was aged four, and even when he returned he was a cold and vacant man, withdrawn, with many secrets. Greer tracked down her father and inadvertently revealed in the book that she was a person who had lacked, in her childhood, any model of a close or warm marital relationship between a mother and father. She came from a broken family. This leaves room to speculate that her disdain for marriage and love was derived from her own emotional limitation. What she called liberation and revolution may simply have been a personal inadequacy.