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veelaughtland 's review for:
The Female Eunuch
by Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer is probably the first name that springs to mind when anyone brings up the subject of feminism, whether you know much about the movement or not. I'll admit that this was the case for me anyway, but I have to say that I did not know too much about her. In fact, I believed her to be one of the 'feminazis', man-hating and bra-burning amongst other things. I decided to pick up her seminal text The Female Eunuch because it came on my radar in the last month or so through YouTube, and I figured I'd see what she had to say. So I was surprised when I discovered that my initial impressions through hearsay Greer were not really accurate at all.
Germaine Greer does not hate men, and she does not advocate bra-burning in the slightest, in fact finding it detrimental to the cause. Surprisingly, what I took from this book was a certain level of irritation and disgust aimed more so at the female population. There were a great many sections in this book where I found Greer's words to be angry and dripping with disdain when she talked about things like excessive mothering of children, and the ever-present fairytale notion of love.
Greer splits her book into four sections: Body, Soul, Love, and Hate, along with a chapter entitled Revolution at the very end. Within these sections, she tackles a myriad of subjects, including marriage, work, body hair, jealousy, even resentment. I found certain sections to be more readable than others (the Hate section was particularly difficult and depressing), and I fluctuated between moments being intensely bored, moments being very intrigued, and moments where I found her words incredibly funny. It certainly evoked a range of emotions in me.
Due to the fact that The Female Eunuch was published in 1970, there are certain aspects of the book that I feel are not quite as relevant anymore, and I think that male/female equality has come a long way since then (despite not being perfect). However, there were a lot of points that Greer made within her book that really stuck out to me, particularly notions of love and the rearing of children. It makes me wonder, is the biological clock a real thing or is it just conditioning in our society for most women to feel the need to prolong the human race?
But I digress. If you are at all interested in the feminist movement, I would strongly suggest that you pick up this novel. Although I didn't necessarily enjoy all of the book, due to the writing being a little wordy at points, I am very glad that I finally got around to reading this book. I think that it is an important book, no matter what detractors of Greer say, and even if I don't agree with absolutely everything she says, it's definitely a great talking-point.
Germaine Greer does not hate men, and she does not advocate bra-burning in the slightest, in fact finding it detrimental to the cause. Surprisingly, what I took from this book was a certain level of irritation and disgust aimed more so at the female population. There were a great many sections in this book where I found Greer's words to be angry and dripping with disdain when she talked about things like excessive mothering of children, and the ever-present fairytale notion of love.
Greer splits her book into four sections: Body, Soul, Love, and Hate, along with a chapter entitled Revolution at the very end. Within these sections, she tackles a myriad of subjects, including marriage, work, body hair, jealousy, even resentment. I found certain sections to be more readable than others (the Hate section was particularly difficult and depressing), and I fluctuated between moments being intensely bored, moments being very intrigued, and moments where I found her words incredibly funny. It certainly evoked a range of emotions in me.
Due to the fact that The Female Eunuch was published in 1970, there are certain aspects of the book that I feel are not quite as relevant anymore, and I think that male/female equality has come a long way since then (despite not being perfect). However, there were a lot of points that Greer made within her book that really stuck out to me, particularly notions of love and the rearing of children. It makes me wonder, is the biological clock a real thing or is it just conditioning in our society for most women to feel the need to prolong the human race?
But I digress. If you are at all interested in the feminist movement, I would strongly suggest that you pick up this novel. Although I didn't necessarily enjoy all of the book, due to the writing being a little wordy at points, I am very glad that I finally got around to reading this book. I think that it is an important book, no matter what detractors of Greer say, and even if I don't agree with absolutely everything she says, it's definitely a great talking-point.