Germaine Greer (an oldish interview)

[MidCLegs]

Nothing to say about this really, I just thought it might be a great distraction for a Thursday eve before a (UK) long weekend. It has lifted my spirits and made me laugh :-)

I love this. She has not one single fuck to give

When I first saw this it was a weight from my shoulders - she states plainly what I was thinking and worrying about. Thank you Germaine x

Thanks for posting.

Great clip. ‘Fuck it!’

Kirsty tried really hard...and didn’t define what it ‘feels like to be a woman’ for Germaine to answer. Women - please be nice!

I remember being outraged the first time I heard her say a man could never be a woman thinking it was very cruel.

Now I know differently, I mean I know we all played an elaborate game of pretend by calling TW women but thought they needed pity and support. I also bought into the wrong body stuff.

She's such a breath of fresh air.

I remember the first time I saw this and thinking 'Oh for fucks sake, Kirsty, give it a rest!' She just went on and on at Germaine who was very clear in what she was saying and who must have the patience of a saint to have not snapped at her.

It almost came across like conversation I have with my 7 yr old where he constantly asks variation of the same question about 10 times in a row

Do you like X mummy?

But what if X was like Y, how about then?

Even if X did Z, what about then?

I met Germaine in queue for the toilets at Dubai airport - we had a good old natter for 10 minutes.

She is just as witty and funny in real life.

My claim to fame

Frangi that must've been fun. I had a flatmate many moons ago who knew her and Helen Garner and I am gutted I was too up my own arse to take the opportunity to talk to them both.

Not sure that many in the UK know of Helen Garner. Her works of fiction are incredible, on a par with Tim Winton. Whilst she has never called herself a feminist she writes beautifully about growing old. www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/helen-garner-i-may-be-an-old-woman-but-im-not-done-for-yet

Queeeeeen!!

Wish I had appreciated her when I attended the university she worked at in the 1990s.

And didn't she make some brilliant points? In deed, how much abuse would a naked old woman (or man?) get if they ran up the road? In deed, so what if feelings get hurt - we are talking about rights, and those come with responsibilities.

Xx

I remember being outraged the first time I heard her say a man could never be a woman thinking it was very cruel. Now I know differently, I mean I know we all played an elaborate game of pretend by calling TW women but thought they needed pity and support. I also bought into the wrong body stuff.

No one needs pity. Everyone needs support.

What Greer did here is the same thing Stephen Fry did when he talked about people being offended.

She said, he said, so what? They have different views of many issues, transsexual/transgender included, but they both assert their right to speak freely.

I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or make them feel bad. Everyone needs yo grow up.

She’s incredible. Every word of that is the truth and the abuse and no-platforming she’s received is absolutely disgraceful.

She's glorious.

I adore her. She done a visit to our little theatre in the crappy little town I live in and I took my mum. It was years ago. She done a q & a at the end, but I was too young and scared to ask a question. I wanted to ask her opinion on 'celebrity', the lips, the fillers, the Botox - and what she thought it meant for women getting it done in their 20's when they reached their 50's or older.

I couldn't ask tho cos I was too shy. Man, if I could go back in time knowing what I know now.

Germaine's great.

Love it!

"but what if they feel insulted if you...?"
I don't care!

I love this interview - this is where she goes to the heart of the misogyny of transactivism - that they seek to fundamentally redefine what it is to be female. Where she says "A woman is not just a man wit his penis cut off."

Behind that statement is centuries of patriarchal misogyny of seeing men/males as the default human being, and seeing women as somehow just "lesser" men.

From Freud, who thought that women suffered from "penis envy, to the Bible myth of making Eve from Adam's rib.

Professor Greer just nails it!

Not sure that many in the UK know of Helen Garner

Wonderful writer - I've just been re-reading Monkey Grip. But then she did that weird book about sexual harassment where she sort of dumped on young women, while writing about her own experiences of intrusive/abusive sexual harassment in her own life ...

Her short stories are amazing. JUst wonderful.

The First Stone was the book Helen Garner wrote about sexual harrassment at Ormond College.

Terrible book. Full of sympathy for a man who had multiple sexual harrassment complaints made about him and contempt for the two women who complained because they didn't just knee him in the balls and forget about it. I've never been able to look at Helen Garner the same way. It's no wonder she doesn't consider herself a feminist because she isn't one.

This is a good review of the book: www.moirarayner.com.au/articles/01womena/firststo.pdf

Back to Greer: I struggle to think of a man with the same history of scholarship and popular writing that has been treated with the same contempt that she has. I thought this piece by Sarah Ditum captured her very well: www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2018/06/germaine-greer-has-always-refused-be-nice-if-only-there-were-more-her

Great video - thanks!

🙄 It looks as if I should go back and read her earlier books using a critical brain.

This is good though;

www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2015/may/1430402400/helen-garner/insults-age

Garner is a great writer. I think that’s what makes her so frustrating on this. It’s like a blind spot she has where she thinks if women would just be the same as Helen Garner in the 60s we’d all be fine.