The Female Eunuch is a book first published in 1970, which became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. The author,
Germaine GreerGermaine Greer is an Australian-born writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
, became well known in broadcast media of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and her home of
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
. It has been translated into eleven languages.
The book is a feminist analysis, written with a mixture of
polemicPolemics is the practice of disputing or controverting significant, broad-reaching topics of magnitude such as religious, philosophical, political, or scientific matters...
and scholarly research.
The Female Eunuch is a book first published in 1970, which became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. The author,
Germaine GreerGermaine Greer is an Australian-born writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
, became well known in broadcast media of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and her home of
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
. It has been translated into eleven languages.
Description
The book is a feminist analysis, written with a mixture of
polemicPolemics is the practice of disputing or controverting significant, broad-reaching topics of magnitude such as religious, philosophical, political, or scientific matters...
and scholarly research. It was a key text of the feminist movement in the 1970s, broadly discussed or criticized by other feminists and the wider community, particularly through the author's high profile in the broadcast media. In sections titled
Soul,
Love and
Hate the author examines historical definitions of women's perception of
selfA self is an individual person, from his or her own perspective.Self may also refer to:* Self , by Yann Martel* Self , a US magazine* Bill Self, American college basketball coach at the University of Kansas...
and uses a premise of imposed limitations to critique modern
consumerConsumer is a broad label for any individuals or households that use goods and services generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer is used in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary....
societies,
femaleFemale is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces mobile ova .- Defining Characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...
"
normalNormal may refer to:* Normality , conformance to an average-In mathematics and science:* Normal * Normality , the discrepancy between the concentrations of ionic species in a solution...
ity" and
masculineMasculinity is manly character. It specifically describes men and boys, that is personal and human, unlike male which can also be used to describe animals, or masculine which can also be used to describe noun classes. When masculine is used to describe men, it can have degrees of comparison—more...
shaping of
stereotypeA stereotype is a commonly held public belief about specific social groups, or types of individuals.The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups, based on some prior...
s. In contrast to earlier feminist works, Greer uses humour, boldness and coarse language to present a direct and candid description of female sexuality; much of this subject remained unspoken in English-speaking societies. The work bridged academia and the contemporary arts in presenting the targets of the final section of the book,
Revolution; it is in accord, and often associated with, a creative and revolutionary movement of the period.
Greer argued that men hate women, though the latter do not realize this and are taught to hate themselves. Arguments and fights broke out over dinner tables, and copies of it were thrown across rooms at unsuspecting husbands (Wallace 1997). It arrived in the stores in London in October 1970. By March 1971, it had nearly sold out its second printing and had been translated into eleven languages.
The book's main thesis is that the traditional,
suburbSuburbs are defined in various different ways around the world. They can be the residential areas of a large city, or separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city. Some suburbs have a degree of political autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city...
an,
consumeristConsumerism is the equation of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen or, more recently by a movement called Enoughism...
,
nuclear familyA nuclear family is a family group consisting of only a father and mother and their children, who share living quarters. This can be contrasted with an extended family. Nuclear families can be of any size, as long as the family can support itself and there are only children and two parents...
represses women sexually, and that this devitalizes them, rendering them
eunuchA eunuch is a political rank often found in ancient courts. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures such as: courtiers or equivalent domestics, treble singers, religious specialists, government officials, military commanders, and...
s. It is a "fitful, passionate, scattered text, not cohesive enough to qualify as a manifesto," writes Laura Miller. "It's all over the place, impulsive and fatally naive—which is to say it is the quintessential product of its time."
"The title is an indication of the problem," Greer told
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
, "Women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality. They've become suspicious about it. Like beasts, for example, who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master's ulterior motives—to be fattened or made docile—women have been cut off from their capacity for action. It's a process that sacrifices vigor for delicacy and succulence, and one that's got to be changed." (March 22, 1971).
Two of the book's themes already pointed the way to her later book
Sex and Destiny, namely that the nuclear family is a bad environment for women and for the raising of children; and that the manufacture of women's sexuality by Western society was demeaning and confining. Girls are feminized from childhood by being taught rules that subjugate them, she argued. Later, when women embrace the stereotypical version of adult femininity, they develop a sense of
shameShame is, variously, an affect, emotion, cognition, state, or condition. The roots of the word shame are thought to derive from an older word meaning to cover; as such, covering oneself, literally or figuratively, is a natural expression of shame....
about their own bodies, and lose their natural and political autonomy. The result is powerlessness, isolation, a diminished sexuality, and a lack of joy:
The ignorance and isolation of most women mean that they are incapable of making conversation: most of their communication with their spouses is a continuation of the power struggle. The result is that when wives come along to dinner parties they pervert civilized conversation about real issues into personal quarrels. The number of hostesses who wish they did not have to invite wives is legion.
Greer argued that change had to come about by
revolutionA revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
, not evolution. Women should get to know and come to accept their own bodies, taste their own menstrual blood, and give up
celibacyCelibacy is defined as the lifestyle of someone who is, and is striving to remain, unmarried all his/her life. It is also used to describe a state of life where one chooses to abstain from all sexual activities...
and
monogamyMonogamy is the state of having only one sexual partner at any one time. The word monogamy comes from the Greek word monos "μονός", which means one or alone, and the Greek word gamos "γάμος", which means marriage or union...
. But they should not burn their bras. "Bras are a ludicrous invention," she wrote, "but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression."
While being interviewed about the book in 1971, she told
The New York Times that she had been a "supergroupie". "Supergroupies don't have to hang around hotel corridors," she said. "When you are one, as I have been, you get invited backstage. I think
groupieA groupie is a person who seeks sexual and/or emotional intimacy with a celebrity or other authority figure. "Groupie" is derived from group in reference to a musical group, but now has more general application.- Musical groupies :...
s are important because they demystify sex; they accept it as physical, and they aren't possessive about their conquests." Greer continued to be renowned as the outspoken author of
The Female Eunuch, but mainly published works that were academic feminism or studies of the historical women artists.
In 1999,
The Whole Woman was published with the first line;
This sequel to The Female Eunuch is the book I said I would never write.
External links
- Germaine Greer discusses The Female Eunuch on the BBC World Book Club
World Book Club is a radio programme on the BBC World Service. Each edition of the programme, which is broadcast on the first Saturday of the month with repeats into the following Monday, features a famous author discussing one of his or her books, often the most well-known one, with the public...