Just Finished Reading: The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (FP: 1970)

I must admit that the strange looks I receive when reading this classic of 2nd Wave Feminism did amuse me greatly. To be honest it’s a small part of why I read it. The main part was, naturally, that this is a cultural classic and I considered that it should be part of my educational quest to understand the modern (and fucked up) age we live in.

Amongst the first things that jumped out at me as I began to slog through this work was just how badly it had dated from its original publication almost 50 years ago. In some sense it was a time capsule or a snapshot of a bygone age. Of course any author is in a sense trapped in their own timeframe but it did seem that the author made little attempt to universalise her message not only for those not inhabiting English towns and villages but for those reading it years or even decades later. Maybe she was going for immediacy and wanted to make the book a ‘happening’ rather than a stale academic text but, at least from my point of view, the author’s regular references to names and events of the day (often mentioned in passing with little or no background or explanation) confused rather than enlightened me. Some of the names and events turned out to be historically noteworthy. Others must have flared into brief prominence and then largely disappeared from the historical record leaving nothing behind but a quizzical look and a half raised eyebrow.

Maybe, after I had the first quarter of the book under my belt, things generally improved or possibly by then I had gotten use to the style and rhythm of things but as I ventured deeper into her ideas I began to enjoy it far more. It’s possible that ‘pop culture references’ featured less often as the author hit her stride and ideas rather than recent news reports came to the forefront. Whatever it was I felt that the second half of the book had more substance than the first. Her deep critique of western culture hit home more than once as she analysed how our society and culture treated women and young girls at that time – and with the advantage of looking back from the early 21st Century to see how much had changed (and how much had not). Her solution for many of these problems must have been very novel and shockingly radical at the time (even in the supposedly progressive age of 1970) – Don’t marry and whatever you do - Don’t have children. I could see why she said this when she outlined the complete lack of childcare facilities available at almost any price. Once children started to arrive – as expected/almost demanded by everyone around you – their mother was trapped and had to essentially give up everything else to care for the children, the husband and the home. All other dreams, hopes and abilities at that point were rendered moot. Things are better today – if not fully resolved. Childcare is still expensive, women over their working lives earn less than men (for a whole host of reasons) and women are still expected (if no longer under so much pressure) to have and bring up children with everything else in second place at best. We are most certainly not in a 2nd Wave heaven at this point and probably no time soon.

Her targets for criticism (and attack) both interested and surprised me a little. The author was clearly no fan of romance, love and the idealisation or relationships, marriage and sex. Women were clearly expected to live up to male fantasies in all of these regards and either have no ideas of their own or, if they did, then to either disregard or supress them in favour of the male versions. Romantic novels and movies in particular where seen simply as methods of propaganda and control (I actually agreed with her here). One of her most intriguing ideas was the thought that women in particular will inevitably find it difficult to be ‘who they are’ because they’ve never had the opportunity to be just that. From the very cradle women in particular (men too though apparently not to such a degree) are moulde3d to be a certain kind of being – essentially what culture (the author clearly meant male culture) demanded they be. Only when women had the opportunity to move beyond this constant conditioning could be truly become women – for the first time in their lives. Personally I’m fascinated with the idea of how the culture we are born into and grow up in changes us away from the ‘real’ or ‘natural’ person. I wonder if it’s even possible to be truly authentically ‘you’ despite the cultural influences that shaped your life. Likewise could you be your ‘true’ self without other people around you to engage in that shaping process. It’s definitely a tough (and therefore very interesting) nut to crack and I enjoyed thinking about it from a new perspective thanks to the author’s mussings.

Although it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting this was still an interesting (and I think valuable) reading experience. Books such as this and the other classics of 2nd Wave Feminism shaped the world we presently inhabit in often profound ways. To understand that world a bit more I think reading works such as this is a must. More to come! (S)