Germaine Greer in 1989 'sex change is a lie'

[SapphosRock]

Interesting to read the parallels between 1989 and now. I doubt this would be published these days.

Thirty years ago, "they" was still considered a lazy, almost casually illiterate pronoun for singular use.

Thirty years ago "it" for a person was considered extremely rude, deliberately offensive.

Little did we realise then how important articles like that one would turn out to be.

It's interesting that Greer, who is not known for avoiding arguments, already felt constrained by social norms to humour a man claiming to be a woman. Yet we still had men many years later not at all worried about making fun of men pretending to be women (thinking of Little Britain).

It’s a really telling comment about the power of female socialisation that even Germaine Greer was so constrained by it that she couldn’t just tell this obnoxious man to piss off, and even went to the ladies’ loos with him. Or let him go with her.

I think many of us would have assumed she’d have no problem in being perfectly forthright at the very least, and laying down appropriate boundaries. It says a lot about what we’re up against in terms of how women are conditioned to see ourselves, and how we are taught others expect us to behave, that even she couldn’t do that then.

Cross post, lovelyweather!

It's so similar to today how he was so interested in being involved in feminism. Feminism should be for the wife/ex-wife and daughters of men like him. uncommongroundmedia.com/which-side-are-you-on-girls-trans-widows/

Thanks for posting this, very interesting
Something that struck me was the line 'age is considered real, femaleness not' drawing the contrast with changing the birthdate on a passport for someone who has had a facelift ie has also [sic{ undergone surgery to be who they see themselves as. There was that case of the man who tried to have his age changed officially a few years ago and was ridiculed widely.

Picking up on the point about a woman's 'erotic' relationship with her baby. I understand this to be about the intensity and physicality of this relationship, which is uniquely female; and not 'genitally fixated', sexual as per 'the male paradigm'. It is an alternative eroticism which as she says is denied and we have lost sight of, these days only understanding erotic to mean sexual, as reflected in the reactions to the comment.

@bumpertobumper that is exactly how I read the erotic comment but you articulated it better than I could.

It is an alternative eroticism which as she says is denied and we have lost sight of, these days only understanding erotic to mean sexual, as reflected in the reactions to the comment

Possibly because that is what "erotic" has always meant? If she meant some sort of alternative physicality "erotic" is a terrible choice of words.

I'm sure "it" was deliberately chosen to be offensive. The use of "they" really was not unknown/ casually illiterate.

I'm sure "it" was deliberately chosen to be offensive. The use of "they" really was not unknown/ casually illiterate.

I agree about "it". But my comment about "they" (and I didn't say "unknown") I still stand by. Pointlessly, perhaps. but there you are.

I'm sure "it" was deliberately chosen to be offensive. The use of "they" really was not unknown/ casually illiterate.

It reads more like mere a dramatic effect to me, to initially obscure sex which is then revealed by descriptive detail. I'm somewhat of a fan of the neutral 'they' in general but that doesn't quite serve the purpose here. If this was in a work of literature (rather than a column, in which this over analysis of each word is perhaps a foolish endeavour) then probably 'figure' rather than 'person' would have been used with 'it'.

Oh for the days when ‘piss off, you’re a man…’ would have been a reasonable (albeit impolite) response.

I remember a time at Hampstead Heath women's pond when a group of fierce lesbians chased away a peeping Tom who came to perve at the female sunbathers.

Fond memories of a different era.

Thanks for posting the article

@Rainbowlaceshelp

I have been told before by a father, that any man who said they didn't want to have sex with their daughter is a liar. I know this is not true, but I think it's sickenly common.

I would be surprised at this. I'm no anthropologist but surely even just from an evolutionary perspective, humans would be wired against it?

I'm sure "it" was deliberately chosen to be offensive.

Oh dear, how unwomanly to be rude. Or maybe just unkind. Take your pick.

Oh for the days when ‘piss off, you’re a man…’ would have been a reasonable response.

Completely reasonable. BTW, woman can be impolite. Which bit, anyway, would have been 'impolite'? The "piss off" or the "you're a man"?

Greer has always been loudly, gloriously, unashamedly rude.

I love her for it.

@JustSpeculation

It's a shame that "they" wasn't used.

Thirty years ago, "they" was still considered a lazy, almost casually illiterate pronoun for singular use. People, at least in my neck of the woods, were snotty about it. Almost as bad as starting a story with "There was this guy, yeah..."

Yes indeed - “they” was only barely acceptable then in informal English; but would have been considered completely illiterate in formal English.

For an English literature academic and writer like Germaine Greer, using “they” as a singular pronoun in a written article would have been unthinkable!

It is an alternative eroticism which as she says is denied and we have lost sight of, these days only understanding erotic to mean sexual, as reflected in the reactions to the comment

Possibly because that is what "erotic" has always meant? If she meant some sort of alternative physicality "erotic" is a terrible choice of words.

Psychoanalysis and a lot of the history of psychology did in fact use “erotic” more widely than just genital sexuality. Literary critics and philosophers too in the 70s-90s - eg in the “erotics of the text” meaning a kind of tactile joy in reading which is erotic though not strictly sexual.

One of not just Freud’s but the whole history of twentieth century psychoanalysis and psychology’s insights was to view the development of the human psyche as intertwined with a latent erotics that manifests itself in all sorts of physical and material relationships that humans have with each other - not just the narrow idea of “genital sexuality”. The mother-baby dyad is thought of as one of - perhaps the most important - of these, making possible the baby’s future healthy relationships with others. It’s tactile, loving, mutual and physical. The baby’s later psychosexual development builds from a healthy relationship with the mother and their physical enjoyment in and with each other. The mother is the baby’s primary love object and all later relationships are psychologically formed as developments of that model. That’s what Greer is referring to.

It used to be a well understood idea based on a complex and rich history of developmental psychology; and to misunderstand it in a kind of “ew, that sounds wrong!” kind of way is evidence of how fast we’ve retreated into a kind of mechanistic, moral simplification about the human self, both in gender ideology and ideas about sex, but also right across the human sciences, psychology and medicine.

It’s eye popping to think that people today will think all sorts of “kink” is perfectly normal, that would have been considered well outside the normal and acceptable range of human sexuality forty years ago - and yet are disgusted by the idea that the mother-baby relationship might have an intrinsic erotic tactility about it?

@foxgoosefinch

It is an alternative eroticism which as she says is denied and we have lost sight of, these days only understanding erotic to mean sexual, as reflected in the reactions to the comment

Possibly because that is what "erotic" has always meant? If she meant some sort of alternative physicality "erotic" is a terrible choice of words.

Psychoanalysis and a lot of the history of psychology did in fact use “erotic” more widely than just genital sexuality. Literary critics and philosophers too in the 70s-90s - eg in the “erotics of the text” meaning a kind of tactile joy in reading which is erotic though not strictly sexual.

One of not just Freud’s but the whole history of twentieth century psychoanalysis and psychology’s insights was to view the development of the human psyche as intertwined with a latent erotics that manifests itself in all sorts of physical and material relationships that humans have with each other - not just the narrow idea of “genital sexuality”. The mother-baby dyad is thought of as one of - perhaps the most important - of these, making possible the baby’s future healthy relationships with others. It’s tactile, loving, mutual and physical. The baby’s later psychosexual development builds from a healthy relationship with the mother and their physical enjoyment in and with each other. The mother is the baby’s primary love object and all later relationships are psychologically formed as developments of that model. That’s what Greer is referring to.

It used to be a well understood idea based on a complex and rich history of developmental psychology; and to misunderstand it in a kind of “ew, that sounds wrong!” kind of way is evidence of how fast we’ve retreated into a kind of mechanistic, moral simplification about the human self, both in gender ideology and ideas about sex, but also right across the human sciences, psychology and medicine.

It’s eye popping to think that people today will think all sorts of “kink” is perfectly normal, that would have been considered well outside the normal and acceptable range of human sexuality forty years ago - and yet are disgusted by the idea that the mother-baby relationship might have an intrinsic erotic tactility about it?

Well that's me told. It's still not, in my view, a particularly sensible choice of words to describe the physicality of the relationship.

With regards to man wanting to have sex with their daughters, I think that refers to the fact that we are animals, mammals. Without the 'higher' human brain, mammals would not have a problem with incest like humans do.

Fascinating comments, as usual.
The line that jumped out at me was "foolish good nature", which perfectly sums up the 'be kind' mantra that so often replaces thought in modern life.