The Whole Woman

I love this book. It is amazing, and, it has to be said, very few people still write anything like this. I don't agree with everything Greer says, but then i don't have to: she is forty years older than me and if her book inspires someone of my generation to write the next 'Female Eunuch' then it will have served its purpose. When I read her first novel, the Female Eunuch, it wasn't so much as a piece of feminist literature as a primary historical source. Yet I feel I owe a debt to Greer and her contemporaries for writing such works and creating the workd in which I grew up.Many criticisms of The Whole Woman have centred on Greer's discussion of 'Pantomine Dames' and supposed defence of female genital mutilation. Whether or not you agree with her conclusions, I think she raises some extremely valid points surrounding these topics, such as, do we construct the Female negatively (ie. by the omission of a male genitalia rather than the possession of female genitalia?) - and, of course, the post-colonial relationship between Western women and women in developing nations. Whilst I will support any woman, anywhere, in her struggle for recognition and emancipation, Greer points out that it isn't my job to tell her how to do it. The West has been doing that for far too long.This isn't, to me, a book of answers. It's a book of questions which I haven't heard asked before. My greatest problem with Greer is that I still find her somewhat dismissive of men. After all, men are our lovers and our sons, and I think few women want that to change. But she reminds us that we have a long way to go in reconstructing our society and redefining the gender roles within it to improve life for men and women. To all those twenty year olds out there: our mothers did a hell of a lot for us. We owe it to them to do a hell of a lot more!!!

Greer returns to tell the 'muddle crass' what a load of tripe and codswallop feminism has become in the nineties. Sure, its full of hyperbole, and short on coolly considered politically-correct solutions. She gives women's 'progress' the lie in stunning rhetorical form. She is a feminist Swift, or perhaps Wyndham Lewis(!!) quaranteed to piss off conventional wisdom of any ilk.

Germaine Greer gives voice to many of the issues that are still unspoken in women's minds. For example, she explicates what many women think about "pantomine dames"--the fact that we are supposed to accept every transvestite and other freak of nature as being "female" instead of what they are: Neither/Nor. In our graciousness we demonstrate a complete lack of pride for our own sexuality. This is only ONE of the many wonderful points Greer makes in this timely book.

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I couldn't put it down. Greer is not only witty & insightful, she is right on target about women's issues. This book will be the impetus for discussion for anyone concerned about women's liberation.

The only disappointing aspect of this book was that I didn't want it to end...so I started reading it again! This book is required reading.