Has Germaine Greer lost the plot?

[WeLoveFlowers]

Her recent remarks that ‘unconsiderate sex’ can be worse than getting raped by a stranger are completely baffling. Has she lost the plot? I can’t get behind her on this one and wish she was no longer treated as as a spokesperson for feminism.

She's always been a bit random. It's nothing new.
I believe other feminists have always been a bit annoyed and frustrated at how she is treated as the official voice of feminism. She is good at self publicity and is great on TV.
I tend to take parts of her work and leave others.

The converse of 'a stopped clock is right twice a day' is something like 'Germaine Greer occasionally talks shite'.

I bet if you watched telly with her, as well as recognising how excellent 'No Offence' and 'Vanity Fair' are, she'd claim that Corrie is as good as it's ever been, or some other nonsense.

Most of what she says is spot on, however.

In about 1998 she was saying we all know there's something a bit dodgy about men who want to work in childcare.
You could come up with a whole list of Ridiculous Stuff Germaine Has Said.

She keeps trying to tell us she’s very old but no one wants to listen because who can replace her?

Germaine Greer forces people to talk about issues, she often does this by making controversial points. This encourages the 'what is she thinking?' journalism (and threads on MN) but it means the issue is discussed further. She has always been excellent at bringing discussions to the mainstream in this way.

It would be good to look at the comments in context and unpack them - it usually reveals something deeper than the controversial comment made to prompt knee-jerk responses. This isn't to say she is always right (and I personally need to look at the comments made myself) but I admire her ability to make people talk and to bring issues to light.

I'm not about to defend this particular comment right now since as I said, I haven't looked at the context myself (yet) but here we are talking about what she has said.

I appreciate the overall message of her recent rape comments could be considered deeply insensitive, but I do think she has a point about changing the narrative surrounding rape.

The idea that it is the patriarchy that has told women that their sex is something deeply precious and they key to the "ownership" of her, and that that message has been used to keep us down I think is a powerful one. That rape - even non-violent, non-contested rape - takes something fundamental away from women and is a tool to "destroy" us on some profoundly hurtful level - I mean I understand what she's saying, how much of that feeling of having been degraded is on account of having been told that our sex is the means by which men own us? That through raping us men can take something far greater from us than the act of not caring if our consent was not enthusiastic? Is that what sex really means to women, outside of a patriarchal society?

If it weren't for patriarchal systems of control, would we be as deeply hurt by non-violent rape as we are in today's society? Like I say, I know that by even asking the question you're risking the emotional upset of many female victims of men - both of men's actions and of the patriarchal systems we've been brought up in - but I do think she might have a point worth exploring.

It depends if the "rape by a stranger" is of the "we were do drunk that I can't remember if I wanted to" variety, in which case - yes, I can see that a shag with your long term partner where they didn't put any effort in & only satisfied them-self, could be worse.

Yup, GG sees the world in a very distinctive way. Often, though, the world has a way of catching her up. I do think her focus on the problematic nature of sex is actually very appropriate for our time. Given the proliferation of porn and the marketing expectations of what women are up for (see a thread on here at the moment about the goody-bag offered to freshers) I think some of the questions she poses are relevant. The only reason she's promoted as a feminist icon is that no one has come forward here in the UK to take her crown — which I suspect she'd willingly give.

Rape is about the visceral experience of having no bodily autonomy.

There are a couple of other threads on this, quite long ones. There is a clear disagreement on how to interpret what she said.

I don't think she is saying that a violent stranger rape is worse than inconsiderate sex, but hat he latter is rape, by definition... and, if we want to increase the number of convictions for rape we need to do a lot more around education of men and women about sex and consent.

Ok, so I looked it up and the sound file is here
www.thesun.co.uk/video/news/germaine-greer-sparks-anger-after-claiming-inconsiderate-sex-is-worse-than-rape/

for anyone who wants to hear it in context. It seems to me that what she is saying (and somewhat clumsily uses the word 'worse') is that the misuse of a woman's body, or co-ercion into sex constantly (or on a day to day basis) by a loved one leaves a lasting and internalised shame and resignation on a woman. Where stranger rape is a one time thing - to be clear, a horrendous, violent violation leaving a person affected forever - is to be distinguished but not considered worse than low level continuous erosion of a woman's consent within a 'loving' relationship. The effects of this being a steady chipping away at a woman's self-worth by someone they love shouldn't be under-estimated. I don't know if I agree with it, I think they are two different things but at the moment I'm taking from her comments that we - as a society - underestimate the impact of low level undermining of a woman's consent or self-worth within a relationship. She has always been concerned with this issue - the day to day impact of patriarchy on women and the gradual almost imperceptible chipping away at women. I think she feels this kind of thing is easily ignored and dismissed in a way that stranger rape cannot be. She's highlighting this issue but I think stranger rape has it's own brand of violence and violation and leaves a woman feeling unsafe for a considerable amount of time (or for the rest of her life). It happens once and leaves an impact which can be identified. Rape, casual assault so frequent they are normalised within a relationship can't be pinpointed in the same way or are taboo so they go ignored and untreated. This is the differentiation I'm seeing but I think the word 'worse' was ill-judged.

I think the choice of words may be somewhat clumsy and with more time she may have qualified them but this was after all, an interview with limited time to speak.

So often these soundbites are presented out of context.

Need to read what you are talking about, can you link please?

Crossed posts - Thanks Kitty

Quite a lot of things she says on the surface of it seem a bit bonkers but I think she good at provoking debates and sometimes out of those debates comes some useful stuff. I feel like she probably knows this and is perhaps why she does it.

I've not read anything about this latest comment other than what the OP said but perhaps it will spark a conversation about how damaging to a woman's mental health years of unconsiderate sex might be vs a one time rape incident.

I'm not advocating for either position but just pointing out what type of conversation might be started based on the comments of someone with a public profile of Greer.

She raises an important point then.

I wonder how much sex women would have if there were no social, physical, emotional or financial penalties for saying no.

Cross posted with Kitty. Seems like she was trying to make a point about the damage caused by years of mistreatment.

she was warning about the dangers of trans impinging in women's spaces a long time ago and was vilified, so I'd read what she says carefully, she's been right many times before

There's an article about it in The Telegraph.

It doesn't improve on further reading. She says I think it’s important that we don’t diminish the effect of constant unconsiderate (sic) use of a woman’s body by the man who she loves.

In some ways it is worse to be abused and treated without consideration by the people who are at the centre of your life.

I agree that it must be horrible but do women not have the right to refuse sex? If a lover subjected me to inconsiderate sex he wouldn't be getting any more, or at least not without a solemn undertaking to do better.

She goes on to attack the way the court system treats rape victims. One of the things that I find really interesting here is the idea that the woman who complains of rape is herself not a party to the action, she is a piece of evidence and she will be examined to find if out if the claim she is making that the offence has occurred is true.

She perhaps hasn't considered that all victims of crime are in much the same boat, though there are seldom witnesses to rape.

But in the first section she seems to be denying that women have agency which is weird for a feminist.

She compares violent rape by a stranger to being hit by a bus missing the point that it's far less arbitrary than that, as the bus in question is deliberately being driven at women.

Jamie, I think this is a fundamental question that Greer's been skirting around for some time. I agree with her that the experience of being in a relationship where one is continually pressured into/ expected to be available for sex is very damaging in its own way.

From the little I can find easily, she has a point. This from the Times before paywall kicks in:

Constant “unconsiderate” sex with a partner can be worse than rape by a stranger, the feminist writer Germaine Greer has suggested.

While rape by a stranger is “bloody bad luck”, it does not necessarily force a woman to reassess her whole life in the way that abuse by loved ones can, Greer said.

The Australian writer was speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme as part of a round of publicity for her essay On Rape, which has prompted controversy around the world.

She said: “I think it is important we don’t diminish the effects of constant unconsiderate use of a woman's body by the man she loves..."

I agree. It makes sense psychologically - constant lower-level trauma can have a more profound effect than a big, one off event (although people seem reluctant to accept this too). It's to do with the lack of social support, the lack of escape anytime soon, the denial of your own self because you have to supress that to survive and keep going with the status quo.

I've thought about this a lot, aside from her comments. Personally, I ended up at a place where I didn't see how I could ever have sex (with a man) again as all the (consensual) sex I'd had felt... kind of abusive. Performing femininity in the extreme. It feels wrong to use the word abusive (compared to real abuse) but I don't have the words or concepts to hand to describe my experiences, compared to the useful shorthand of the word "rape". Other life experiences have shown me that it is easier to deal with stuff that can be summed up neatly and others have a concept of "that's a bad thing", compared to quietly horrible stuff that's difficult to explain so no-one understands... Consent is confusing too, if you consider all the conditioning we go through to be compliant.

Kitty said at the moment I'm taking from her comments that we - as a society - underestimate the impact of low level undermining of a woman's consent or self-worth within a relationship.

I agree entirely with your interpretation, but that's not what she said. She could easily have clarified if that's what she meant, so I'm assuming she meant what she said. She has, after all, been a writer her whole adult life.

Apologies, massively x-posted with everyone!

Plant, what you’ve explained makes a lot of sense.

If it weren't for patriarchal systems of control, would we be as deeply hurt by non-violent rape as we are in today's society?

errr.. I'm not traumatised by my rape, I barely even think about it, I don't think my precious virginity was stolen by it and I've lost something irreplaceable and of un-countable value for instance - but yes, frankly, someone shoving a piece of themselves inside someone else I think should be shocking. I do think we should consider it deeply invasive (what with it being exactly that). I don't think that we should ever take lightly someone sticking a part of themselves in someone else without permission - be that a penis in a vagina, a finger up a nostril, or a toe in a mouth.

In fact, if we talk about other orifices/appendages that can be combined, it becomes completely obvious that yes, of course it's a big thing, of course people should be angry when it's done to them!

Prawn I agree that it must be horrible but do women not have the right to refuse sex? If a lover subjected me to inconsiderate sex he wouldn't be getting any more, or at least not without a solemn undertaking to do better.

If you've never experienced "better", and don't live in a sociey that promotes it, you wouldn't know there was anything else.