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| | 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. |
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| − | ==''The Female Eunuch''== | + | ==The Female Eunuch== |
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| | In 1970 she published ''The Female Eunuch'' which attracted attention because Greer was mainly concerned with sexuality and defined "liberation" as promiscuity and the abolition of marriage and relationships. Drawing many of her ideas from the already prevalent wave of permissiveness in the Western world, and also from such predecessors as [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Betty Friedan]] and [[Helen Gurley Brown]] she enthusiastically advocated a life of casual sexual encounters and dismissed marriage as "slavery". She wrote scornfully of romance. Greer boldly claimed that "Children don't need to be brought up. They grow up anyway". She thought housework could be abolished if people lived in communes where the chores were done by a "local family" i.e. someone else, conveniently happy to play a servant role. The book ended with a euphoric vision of women smoking marijuana and "demanding abortions". | | In 1970 she published ''The Female Eunuch'' which attracted attention because Greer was mainly concerned with sexuality and defined "liberation" as promiscuity and the abolition of marriage and relationships. Drawing many of her ideas from the already prevalent wave of permissiveness in the Western world, and also from such predecessors as [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Betty Friedan]] and [[Helen Gurley Brown]] she enthusiastically advocated a life of casual sexual encounters and dismissed marriage as "slavery". She wrote scornfully of romance. Greer boldly claimed that "Children don't need to be brought up. They grow up anyway". She thought housework could be abolished if people lived in communes where the chores were done by a "local family" i.e. someone else, conveniently happy to play a servant role. The book ended with a euphoric vision of women smoking marijuana and "demanding abortions". |
| − | The book had little in common with the grass roots feminist 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>
| + | Greer's ideas had little in common with the grass roots feminist 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> |
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| | 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. | | 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. |
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| | + | By 1972, the global success of ''The Female Eunuch'' had made her rich enough to resign her academic post, and buy a villa in Italy. She became a free-lance lecturer and journalist. |
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| | ==Anti-censorship Campaigning== | | ==Anti-censorship Campaigning== |