Germaine Greer
Australian writer and public intellectual
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer and public intellectual, known for The Female Eunuch (1970), a major text of second-wave feminism.
1 summary 13 min of listening
Australian Born 1939 in Melbourne, Australia
About Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 29 January 1939. She has worked as a writer, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, and has held academic posts at the University of Warwick and Newnham College, Cambridge in England, and at the University of Tulsa in the United States. She began living in the UK in 1964. Her first book, The Female Eunuch, appeared in 1970 and became an international bestseller. It argued that women were pushed into submissive roles to suit male fantasies of womanhood, and it made her a household name. Her ideas have stirred controversy ever since. Greer has written over 20 books, including Sex and Destiny, The Change, The Whole Woman and Shakespeare's Wife. White Beech: The Rainforest Years (2013) tells of her work to restore an area of rainforest in Australia. She has also written columns for newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian and The Spectator.