Germaine Greer: Quotes about women

Germaine Greer is Australian feminist author. Explore interesting quotes on women.
Germaine Greer: 146   quotes 3   likes

“Women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality. They've become suspicious about it.”

Germaine Greer

As quoted in "Germaine Greer — Opinions That May Shock the Faithful" by Judith Weinraub in The New York Times (22 March 1971) http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/specials/greer-shock.html
Context: 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 vigour for delicacy and succulence, and one that's got to be changed.

Women

“The term eunuchs was used by Eldridge Cleaver to describe blacks. It occurred to me that women were in a somewhat similar position.”

Germaine Greer

On how she chose the title for The Female Eunuch, in an interview by Nat Lehrman in Playboy (January 1972)
Context: The term eunuchs was used by Eldridge Cleaver to describe blacks. It occurred to me that women were in a somewhat similar position. Blacks had been emancipated from slavery but never given any kind of meaningful freedom, while women were given the vote but denied sexual freedom. In the final analysis, women aren't really free until their libidos are recognized as separate entities. Some of the suffragettes understood this. They could see the connection among the vote, political power, independence and being able to express their sexuality according to their own experience, instead of in reference to a demand by somebody else. But they were regarded as crazy and were virtually crucified. Thinking about them, I suddenly realized, Christ, we've been castrated and that's what it's all about. You see, it's all very well to let a bullock out into the field when you've already cut his balls off, because you know he's not going to do anything. That's exactly what happened to women.

Women

“Women have been charged with deviousness and duplicity since the dawn of civilization so they have never been able to pretend that their masks were anything but masks.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

Womanpower (p. 129)
The Female Eunuch (1970)
Context: Women have been charged with deviousness and duplicity since the dawn of civilization so they have never been able to pretend that their masks were anything but masks. It is a slender case but perhaps it does mean that women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism.

Women

“Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the caresses of a subhumanly ugly mate?”

Germaine Greer
Women , Beauty

“I find that those men who are personally most polite to women, who call them angels and all that, cherish in secret the greatest contempt for them.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

Source: The Female Eunuch

Women , Men , Secret , Angels

“Those miserable women who blame the men who let them down for their misery and isolation enact every day the initial mistake of sacrificing their personal responsibility for themselves.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

Source: The Female Eunuch

Women , Men , Personality

“Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

p. 263 http://books.google.com/books?ei=7hdeUeCtEOGmiQLnu4HYBg&id=x88du4E7ARAC&dq=%22The+Female+Eunuch%22+1971&q=%22hate+them%22#search_anchor
Often paraphrased as: "women have no idea how much men hate them."
The Female Eunuch (1970)

Women , Men , Hate , Idea

“The failure of women to produce great works of art and all that can be explained in terms of this statement. Insofar as she escapes or rejects her conditioning, the little girl may excel in those kinds of intellectual activity that are called creative, but eventually she either capitulates to her conditioning, or the conflicts become so pressing that her efficiency is hampered.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

The Raw Material
The Female Eunuch (1970)

Women , Art , Girl , Failure

“The most powerful entities on earth are not governments but the multi-national corporations that see women as their territory, indoctrinating them with their versions of beauty, health and hygiene, medicating them and cultivating their dependency in order to medicate them some more.”

Germaine Greer

Liberation (pg. 336)
The Whole Woman (1999)

Women , Health , Beauty , Dependency

“We can put women on Prozac and they will think they are happy, even though they are not. Disturbed animals in the zoo are given Prozac too, which rather suggests that misery is a response to unbearable circumstances rather than constitutional.”

Germaine Greer

Sorrow (pg. 183)
The Whole Woman (1999)

Women , Thinking , Animals , Happiness

“The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

Revolution
The Female Eunuch (1970)

Women , Joy

“Men have still not realized that letting women do so much of the work for so little reward makes a man in the house an expensive luxury rather than a necessity.”

Germaine Greer

Work (pg. 136)
The Whole Woman (1999)

Women , Men , Housing

“The element of heroic maleness had always been present in the concept of the artist as one who rides the winged horse above the clouds beyond the sight of lesser men, a concept seldom applied to those who worked with colours until the nineteenth century. When the inevitable question is asked, "Why are there no great women artists?" it is this dimension of art that is implied. The askers know little of art, but they know the seven wonders of the painting world.”

Germaine Greer The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work

Source: The Obstacle Race (1979), Chapter V: Dimension (p. 105)

Women , Men , World , Art

“How you answer the question, whether individuals should be persuaded to live their whole lives in a state of chemical dependency, first upon contraceptive steroids and then on replacement therapy, depends upon your regard for the autonomy of the individual. If men would not live their lives this way, why should women?”

Germaine Greer

Estrogen (pg. 160)
The Whole Woman (1999)

Women , Men , Way , Question

“The stereotype is the Eternal Feminine. She is the sexual object sought by all men, and all women. She is of neither sex for she herself has no sex at all. Her value is solely attested by the demand she excites in others. All she must contribute is her existence. She need achieve nothing, for she is the reward of achievement. She need never give positive evidence of her moral character because virtue is assumed from her loveliness, and her passivity.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

The Stereotype
The Female Eunuch (1970)

Sex , Women , Men