Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer 1939-, Australian feminist and writer. She moved to England (1964), earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge, and taught at the Univ. of Warwick (1967-73). Her book The Female Eunuch (1970), an analysis of attitudes toward women and a call for an end to sexual repression, made her a leading spokeswoman for feminism . Her other books, nearly all concerned with some aspect of women's work or experience, include The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work (1979, repr. 2001), The Change: Women, Aging, and the Menopause (1992), The Whole Woman (1999), and Shakespeare's Wife (2007).

Greer, Germaine (1939– ) Australian feminist writer. Her controversial book The Female Eunuch (1970) portrayed marriage as a legalized form of female slavery and questioned a number of gender-oriented stereotypes. Other works include Sex and Destiny: the Politics of Human Fertility (1984), The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991), and The Whole Woman (1999). See also feminism

Greer, Germaine (1939– ), feminist, polemicist, and critic, born in Melbourne, and educated at the universities of Melbourne, Sydney, and Cambridge; she settled in Europe in 1964. Her first book, The Female Eunuch (1970), opened a new area of feminist debate about the role of women in a male-dominated culture. Subsequent work includes The Obstacle Race (1979), a discussion of the social and financial difficulties of women painters; Sex and Destiny (1984); and Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet (1995), a challenging view of women poets, which does not spare what Greer sees as their failings as writers. The Madwoman's Underclothes (1986) is a collection of essays and occasional pieces, some previously unpublished, some from underground periodicals such as Oz and the late 1960s Suck. Daddy We Hardly Knew You (1989) is a family memoir and The Whole Woman (1999) reconsiders the progress of feminism.