The Female Eunuch facts for kids

The Female Eunuch is a 1970 book by Germaine Greer that became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. The book was published in London in October 1970. It received a mixed reception, but by March 1971, it had nearly sold out its second printing. It has been translated into eleven languages.

A sequel to The Female Eunuch, entitled The Whole Woman, was published in 1999.

Summary

The book is a feminist analysis, written with a mixture of polemic and scholarly research. It was a key text of the feminist movement in the 1970s, broadly discussed and criticised by other feminists and the wider community, particularly through the author's high profile in the broadcast media. In sections titled "Body", "Soul", "Love" and "Hate" Greer examines historical definitions of women's perception of self and uses a premise of imposed limitations to critique modern consumer societies, female "normality", and masculine shaping of stereotypes quoting, "The World has lost its soul, and I my sex." Greer's irreverence towards Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis was inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. The work bridged academia and the contemporary arts in presenting the targets of the final section of the book, Revolution; it is in accord, and often associated with, a creative and revolutionary movement of the period.

Greer argues that men hate women, though the latter do not realise this and are taught to hate themselves.

In her final title labelled Revolution, Greer argues that change had to come about via revolution, not evolution. Women should get to know and come to accept their own bodies and give up celibacy and monogamy. Yet they should not burn their bras. "Bras are a ludicrous invention," she wrote, "but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression." Greer complains of the "genteel, middle-class ladies" that sit on women's rights committees and spend their time signing petitions to achieve equality. Greer expresses that to gain equality a woman must not be genteel but she should instead seek revolution. In a foreword added to the 21st anniversary edition, Greer references the loss of women's freedom with the "sudden death of communism" (1989) as catapult for women the world over for a sudden transition into consumer Western society wherein there is little to no protection for mothers and the disabled; here, there is no freedom to speak:

The freedom I pleaded for twenty years ago was freedom to be a person, with dignity, integrity, nobility, passion, pride that constitute personhood. Freedom to run, shout, talk loudly and sit with your knees apart. Freedom to know and love the earth and all that swims, lies, and crawls upon it...most of the women in the world are still afraid, still hungry, still mute and loaded by religion with all kinds of fetters, masked, muzzled, ... and beaten.

See also

In Spanish: La mujer eunuco para niños