Germaine GreerRecensioni

I read this about 40 years ago and absorbed its 'consciousness raising' message. It's still worthy background for appreciating gender issues in wider culture, but the more 'intersectional' approaches to feminism today seem much closer to the mark.

Thought provoking and appears to hit the nail on the head, why aboriginal society is failing.

I think Greer had a lot of fun writing this book - and I had a lot of fun reading it.
I was attracted to the book by a quote from a reviewer who said something along the lines of - Greer has been as unprovocative as she could be, but the old men of academia still reacted with outrage and venom.
Well, if there were to be sides - I'd be on Greer's team.
The study of Shakespeare's life and times suffers from the lack of documentary evidence. Too many academics backfill the gap with commentary inmformed by later lives and times. Greer goes back to the basics, and gives the reader a great picture of what life was like in Stratford, and for women in particular. Life was different, but the reader comes away with a sense of what life may have been likely for Ann Hathaway.
The other interesting aspect of the book, for me, was the picture of the aging Shakespeare who retired back to Avon as a man of some wealth. There's a hint here of some sort of serious decline in abilities - dementia? It's only an aside in this book, but I would love to see if others have considered the issue. Just because he was a genius at his prime doesn't mean he waasn't mortally fragile as he aged.

I enjoyed this book. It's a very easy read, both because the text is quite short and because Greer's prose is clear and well-structured. The illustrations are almost all beautiful pieces of art in their own right, and so worthy of taking the time to look at.

I found the ideas most compelling when they related specifically to art history and cultural studies. When Greer veered into anthropology or history, I had much less confidence in the points she was making. I don't know much about the content, but even I picked up a couple of errors and a couple of tendentious interpretations of artworks that made me wonder what other misrepresentations or mistakes I was missing. As a result, this is a book that stimulated thought for me but certainly wouldn't change my mind, except in the broadest terms.

The main point, in my view, is that boys are beautiful and that as a society we lose something by failing to enjoy that fact. This raises interesting questions about the the lines between beauty and attractiveness, and about the relationships between different kinds of attractiveness. A puppy can be attractive, in the sense of "pleasing or appealing to the senses", but there is no thought of sexual desire. A person can also be attractive without arousing sexual desire (for instance a gay man might find a woman attractive but not wish to have sex with her), but then they may also arouse sexual desire. Where does that leave us with boys, who at their youngest are not sexually attractive but at their oldest may be reasonably be sexually attractive to some? For instance, in an interview after the book was published, the fifteen year old boy pictured on the cover of this book expressed his discomfort at being ogled by adult men when the photo was taken (in the 70s, while he was acting in the film of [b:Death in Venice|53061|Death in Venice|Thomas Mann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1627232919l/53061._SY75_.jpg|17413130]), but if the attention had come from fourteen year old girls he may have felt differently.

Of course the gender of the gaze matters, and rather than getting bogged down in the complexities of men and power, Greer's default position is that of the female gaze. This makes the discussion clearer, cleaner and lighter but it also means that Greer skirts the ethical issues of attractiveness rather than delving into them. As a consequence, this book is an entertaining, though-provoking piece of popular cultural studies, rather than a serious inquiry into aesthetics or representation in art.

I was very young when I read this work by [Germaine Greer] and it didn’t so much enlighten me, but affirmed a number of my understandings on how women were viewed in the 20th century West. A must for the boomer generation women starting their journey.

i don’t know how i should rate this, but it’s an intense experience of petty prejudice rooted in truth

Better than a 3 1/2 star read? Not as good as a 4? I struggled with how I felt about this book throughout my time reading it. It has been a ground-breaker in feminist literature and I really held high hopes for it.

Much of its insight into women's conditioning still holds true: recent social media revelations about how young women view their bodies in a negative light are as relevant as when the tweens saw "perfect women" on the color glossy pages of 60's magazines. And hated their own bodies as a result. Women earning significantly less than men. Still. Women struggling in the arts and sports to achieve what their male counterparts have achieved (see: US Women's Soccer). Greer's references to studies of rural women in post-Elizabethan England, who married their husbands for love and were equal with him in running the household; we were right there, until the demands of family forced so many Western women to resign their jobs (see: 2020).

The cringe-worthiness of dated references to African-Americans or members of the LGBTQ community are on full display here. The publications and studies are now mostly obscure, though she does pull out good historical quotes by and about women.

But. The contempt with which Greer writes about and to housewives, her denigrations about their abilities, including her own mother, are revealing. By the end of the book I had to wonder: What was she trying to achieve? Her paternalism, her lack of compassion, and her general "snark" meant that. I. Just. Couldn't. Praise her more than as an ardent second wave feminist whose work did not stand the test of time.

What is a boy? This book approaches that question through the artists' depiction of the male figure. Specifically, the history of male beauty through the ages and the ways that it has been expressed is the focus of this gorgeous book. Greer has the eye and the mind to bring the masculine figure to life in the many varieties that it has been displayed over the centuries.

Greer makes a much needed attempt to challenge the popular assumption that Shakespeare disliked and abandoned his supposed shrewish, overbearing, and plain wife who was stifling his creatively.

While not trying to cover up her, or Shakespeare’s own faults, this is a brave attempt to understand the context of Elizabeth marriage and Ann Hathaway’s role in the Bard’s life.

Unfortunately in some ways it suffers from the subject herself, in that so little is known about Ann that the book is overwhelmed by supposition, inference, and just pure guess work that drives an often circular logic.

Greer writes in the final paragraph that “…. most of this book is hearsay, and probably neither true, nor less true than the accepted prejudice.” - So I had to wonder what was the point of the previous 350 pages?

The Obstacle Race. The Fortunes of Women Painters and their Work.
Greer, Germaine

Published by London: BCA (1980)

Used Hardcover
About this Item: London: BCA, 1980. 8vo Cloth Dw. Rpt. Illus.373 pp. Dw. sl. marked o/w V.g. Seller Inventory # 53405

Lots of interesting disruption to the popular discourse around rape.

feminism and current events

A search into the author's past reveals the secrets of her father and how his life impacted hers. A compelling read that resonates with women everywhere.

Poetry anthology. This isn't a 'best of' collection. To quote the introduction this is 'a sampler, a selection of odd and interesting morsels, that will whet the appetite for more'. Germaine Greer goes on to say 'some of the poetry I have chosen is frankly bad', but they all 'have a life of their own'.
Ordered chronologically from 'The ballad which Anne Askew made and sang when she was in Newgate' in 1546 to Margaret Atwood's 1995 piece 'Morning in the Burning House', this collection includes many names new to me, along with big literary names like the Brontes, Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson. If this were a 'best of' book of poetry Dickinson would probably be top of Greer's list, so it's a nice touch that her only poem in this enjoyable anthology is on page 101.

Wonderful book. Much more in writing than in pictorial support. The age of male beauty between childhood and manhood. Virtually unrecorded in our times and hardly to be found, even on the internet.

In the 1970s this was a landmark book supporting feminist ideals. While the statistical data might be a little out of date, the rest of the narrative is sharp, funny, and in some cases, spot on. Even today. Through her seminal work Greer will take you through a sometimes sarcastic, sometimes sad, and always intelligent journey regarding every aspect of a woman's world in the 1970s. She begins with the obvious, the female body and moves onto soul, love and hate. She ends with a powerful chapter on rebellion and revolution.There were lots and lots of quotations to chose from. Here are some of my favorites, "In any case brain weight is irrelevant, as was swiftly admitted when it was found to operate to male disadvantage" (p 93), "Most likely a sued Other Woman would have to ask her husband undertake payments for her" (p 118), and "Genuine chaos is more fruitful than the chaos of conflicting systems which are mutually destructive" (p 234). Author fact: Greer is extremely funny. However, when she admitted to being groped in Female Eunuch it prompted me to do a little more digging about her life. I was a little surprised by her 2018 thoughts regarding punishment for convicted rapists. It's an example of how Greer thinks, always pushing boundaries.

For a such a little book it has created quite a furore: it’s only 92 pages, of which four are endnotes. Greer has been vilified and mocked for it, which she must have known was going to happen, but she has always been courageous. She has been quoted as saying things which in the book are quotations from someone with whom she disagrees. She is condemned for writing words and having opinions and making statements that are nowhere to be found in the book. Greer seems to have a thick skin, but I wonder if she ever gets tired of the way her efforts to raise serious issues are treated in the media. And now she’s got social media to contend with as well.
FWIW Greer is not, in this book, suggesting solutions. She is raising issues for discussion because non-consensual sex, with or without violence, is a very serious problem.
Chapter one: ‘What is rape?’ shows that even defining what it is and what it isn’t, is contentious. Chapter two: ‘Creating confusion’ is an analysis of the ways in which sincere efforts at law reform since the 70s haven’t helped. Chapter three: ‘The conundrum of consent’ is a clear-eyed look at the intractable problem of proving lack of consent (he said/she said) in a court of law. Chapter four is called ‘Sex as a bloodsport’ and raises the problem of serial offenders in places like universities and how they get away with it.
Chapter five, ‘Victim or exhibit’ suggests that the legal system itself makes things more difficult, but solutions are not easy to come by since the accused —like any other person accused of a crime—has civil rights. A woman who accuses a man of rape is not a plaintiff, still less a prosecutor. She is evidence. An exhibit. The whole process is a long, drawn out and horrendous ordeal for the woman, and so far, attempts at reform haven’t helped.
The chapters ‘Joystick or weapon’ and ‘Healing the victim’ are the ones that have generated the most anger against Greer. I’ll just quote this bit:

As usual we are confronted by unanswerable questions. Most rape is not accompanied by physical injury or carried out by men unknown to the victim, nor is it followed by flashbacks or is it ever identified as a crime. In the case of a woman who chooses to report the event, we have no idea how much of her distress is caused by the work-up itself, by the compilation of the forensic evidence, by her having to tell her story over and over and in public and then to defend it both in the committal stage and later in the courtroom. The most catastrophic shock must surely come when, as far too often happens, the jury does not convict. Nothing in the literature of PTSD after rape deals with these experiences. For all the intellectual effort and energy that has gone into getting the law of rape to make sense, conviction rates are falling. Meanwhile the true extent of non-consensual sex remains unimaginable. (p.62)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/11/09/on-rape-by-germaine-greer-bookreview/

I liked this quite a bit. It's true that Greer does the same thing she accuses other scholars of doing: building up a portrait of someone based on assumptions and speculations rather than facts. Yet I think this is her point: whether you think Ann Hathaway was beloved by her husband or the reverse, literate or not, there is as much reason to believe in a good version of her as a bad version. The book is a little long, and Ann sometimes disappears entirely beneath a swarm of detail about other Stratford women of the time (about whom Greer has more data). And Greer is no great stylist. But she has some provocative ideas, and this book serves as a useful corrective to some of the anti-Ann flights of fancy found in other books about Shakespeare (Greer likes to call their authors "bardolators"). At any rate, Shakespeare's Wife deserved better reviews than I remember it getting.

This is one of those books of feminist thinking that inspired me when I was young. I once saw Greer speak and she was magnificent. I think it is time for a revival.

One of the books I referred to most often while studying art. Wink! A book that is mostly about women (and occastionally men) admiring beautiful boys... with pictures! Not a perspective often studied (or even considered) in art.

If you haven't got a clue about women who were artists: okay, this might be a start. But poor methodology, poor research and poor reasoning. The book is rubbish.

While I love the idea of this book, taking a fresh look at Anne Hathaway Shakespeare and imagining something different than the shrew up in Stratford. However, there was, in truth, less postulating about Anne and more, agonizingly more, data compilation of people and situations near, around, or vaguely related to things that may or may not have happened to Anne. While I cannot find any fault or complaint with Ms. Greer's research, it was more like reading someone's very dry thesis work than an even remotely interesting work of non-fiction. I admit being spoiled by Foreman's Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Massie's Catherine the Great. If you are looking for scholarly work on life in Elizabethan rural England, you may find this informative. If you're looking for Anne Shakespeare, you unfortunately won't find her here.

How Not to Introduce a Non-introductory Topic to the Uninitiated (what a mouthful...): "Shakespeare - A Very Short Introduction" by Germaine Greer Published 2002.
 
“An essential aspect of the mind and art of Shakespeare, then, is his lack of self-consciousness. Nothing but a complete lack of interest in self-promotion, from which the careful publication of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece are the only aberration, can explain Shakespeare’s invisibility. The lives of lesser men and women, insignificant members of his own family, the actors he worked with, the politicians and courtiers he knew or might have known, have all been scrutinized minutely, their every action tracked to the find the spoor of the bard, but they have yielded all but that.”
 
Why did the editors of the VSI series wanted to replace this little gem of a book with the one, by the exact same title, by Stanley Wells? I’ve always wondered. I can’t even find Greer’s book in the homepage of the VSI Series!
 
Maybe because in Greer’s book you also won’t find an attempt at finding the whereabouts of Shakespeare. Greer only wants to commit to a description of Shakespeare’s thought, i.e, only what we can read in his works.
 
If you're into Shakespeare, read on.

I liked this quite a bit. It's true that Greer does the same thing she accuses other scholars of doing: building up a portrait of someone based on assumptions and speculations rather than facts. Yet I think this is her point: whether you think Ann Hathaway was beloved by her husband or the reverse, literate or not, there is as much reason to believe in a good version of her as a bad version. The book is a little long, and Ann sometimes disappears entirely beneath a swarm of detail about other Stratford women of the time (about whom Greer has more data). And Greer is no great stylist. But she has some provocative ideas, and this book serves as a useful corrective to some of the anti-Ann flights of fancy found in other books about Shakespeare (Greer likes to call their authors "bardolators"). At any rate, Shakespeare's Wife deserved better reviews than I remember it getting.

Reading The Female Eunuch now feels to a certain extent like reading a pamphlet from the Suffragist movement; the arguments are clear, but the backdrop is somehow distant and faded. How much that changed backdrop is a result of the efforts of people like Germaine Greer is for the historians to say, but this book clearly earns its place on the bookshelf as one of the most important works in the women's liberation movement.

Despite being written in 1970, there is nothing stale about this book. Greer's writing can be very punchy, at times witty, and the threads of her argument are clearly and logically set out. For a book that has sold over a million copies, she is extremely eloquent, at times even a touch grandiloquent, and her choice of words sometimes had me reaching for a dictionary. That aside, the book is fairly easy to read for its subject matter.

Nevertheless, it is not Greer's arguments or her choice of phrasing that are difficult to understand, but the context in which they were written. It is difficult for anyone born after that time to comprehend how much society has changed in the intervening period, at the most fundamental, interpersonal level. In this light, Greer's arguments can seem overdramatised, perhaps even alien to someone reading them today, but there is plenty which bears relevance to understanding how we got where we are, and perhaps knowing where we have yet to go.

Greer covers the whole gamut of the female experience, from birth and childhood, through sex and marriage, to the workplace and public sphere. In covering this massive range of subjects, from the most tangible in terms of jobs, wages and taxation, through to more esoteric notions of imagery in language and psychology, one gets a clear notion of Greer's ideal vision. Although there are far more criticisms of the status quo than overt recommendations for change, in questioning some of the core elements of society, it leads all of us to critically appraise our modes and ways of life.

Many people who haven't read this book, and men in particular, assume it must be written by a man-hater, an irrational and fiery-hearted misandrist nailing her theses to the church of patriarchy. In truth, the book is a deep and basic criticism of that day and age's society, pointed as much at women as at men for perpetuating a system which essentially encouraged contempt for half of the population, in many ways treating them as second-class citizens. There is an important distinction here between sexual equality and women's liberation, for Greer argues for fundamental changes as a way to improve the lives of everyone. This is not a call to gender war in a Marxian vein; in fact, although Greer has a clear leftist bent, it seems she did not put faith in the class revolution to put society on the correct footing.

There are just a couple of criticisms I have about this edition. The first is that there is no index, which I feel would have been a useful addition. Although Greer divided the book into well arranged and clearly labelled chapters, it is still difficult to find references without having to guess under which subheading you might find them. Secondly, as part of Flamingo's Seventies Classics Series, this really should have come with an introduction. Printed over thirty years after its initial publication, with so much having changed in the intervening period, a simple outline of the society in which this book was written, and an overview of its reception and responses, would have been an extremely welcome addition.