Germaine Bloody Greer

[TheFirstMrsOsmond]

Did anyone watch the BBC documentary with this title last weekend? The best thing about it was all the archive footage around the time of the publication of "The Female Eunuch" in 1970 and I was filled with renewed admiration for her - she was so fearlessly outspoken at a time when her views were treated with incredulity and contempt.

We also saw her as she is now, still irascible & uncompromising, but a somewhat vulnerable figure, limping slightly (nearly 80 now I think)

I was less than impressed with the interviewer however who could have asked better questions (indeed more than once GG told her so rather bluntly!)

What did others think?

The archive footage was amazing - it gave a real sense of how significant she was as a writer/thinker.

The ageing aspect was of course, saddening. As was a sense that the drive for equality has fallen away.

Her views on Thatcher were interesting (the cause of the end of a golden era).

Her contrariness can be wearying but yes, the interviewer could have made more of her.

I had re-watched Alan Yentob's "Imagine" documentary on Margaret Atwood a few days earlier which also contained a lot of archive footage and she was, like Greer, magnificent in the face of interviewers criticising what she had written, saying in cool dispassionate tones, "Really? That's too bad.... it's really not my problem," when they told her how her novels had made them feel. Both GG & MA are robustly unapologetic and full of conviction about their own work and I love that.

I missed the Atwood programme. Will try and catch it on iPlayer.

Watching Germaine and people like her makes one very aware of the apparent absence in the public domain of great thinkers like them today, leaders really, revolutionaries of their time.

Yes futuristic1 I agree, she is one of the true original thinkers of the late 20th century.

I know what you mean when you say "her contrariness can be wearying" and I think this is one of the reasons she has as an older person been taken less seriously, especially by the young who perhaps have only heard "sound bites" rather than reading the books in which she powerfully conveys a cogently argued, innovative point of view. It always saddens me if she is discussed as if she is a bit of a joke (though she herself probably couldn't care less!) when so much has changed for younger women because of the challenges she made to the status quo

Showing my age, and era, here but I remember buying The Female Eunuch when it came out. I worked in a newspaper office among loads of blokes and was newly married. One of the guys asked if I had read the book and when I said I had he said 'Doesn't your husband mind you reading stuff like that?'
This was the same husband (now ex obv) who, when I got my ears pierced one lunchtime, got angry and asked me why I hadn't asked him first. At the time it seemed normal to me.
Honestly, young women today have no idea what it was like back then and I'm not THAT ancient.

dogsdinnerlady I was only 10 in 1970 but your 2 anecdotes speak volumes for those times and the cultural attitude which still persisted that women were the property of men. I think this is why Greer was a liberation feminist rather than an equality feminist. There is a general perception today that everything was great from the 60s onwards, the permissive society, etc etc but it really wasn't.

This is being repeated shortly on BBC2 I missed it last Saturday as i was out.

I'm watching this now, as someone who's been more aware of her coverage than of her, and I'm utterly disarmed and rather in love. Christ, what charisma and what a mind.

Buying all her books tomorrow.

Charisma and great minds don't seem to count for much if you are a woman of a certain age. Most of the media comments about GG focus on her being a batty old bra-burner from another age.
Looking back on my youth I see now that I was brainwashed into accepting myself as someone's property and should shut up and be grateful. And I was reasonably well educated and had a career.
I like to think I am over that now but I still find myself giving DH the biggest/best cut of meat .

Fabulous documentary
This was so interesting and she is such an impressive person. As an independent woman who is getting married soon I totally recognise what she is saying on that subject too.

Seconded stablegenius what a fucking awesome woman! I only wish I'd discovered more about her and second wave feminism before I reached 47 years old. So the Female Eunuch first came out in 1970? The year I was born