Comments on: Germaine Greer

By: Expanded Consciousness

Expanded Consciousness — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:17:53 +0000

Regarding early in the interview, Greer is stuck in the 1950s when she pontificates on the sexual mores of women today. She tells of the dating woes of a young woman she met who decided to be abstinent and the bad, bad sexual young men of today who did not want the sexual frustration offered! Please! Women in their 20s today invest greatly in their sexuality. Implicit in her story is that sexually active young women today would accept a non-sexual relationship from a man. Yeah, right! I have known women in their 20s through the workplace from all sorts of backgrounds. I know that they would absolutely not be hunky-dory meeting a new man who was completely sexually impotent, refused to take ED drugs, or sexless due to their choice or beliefs.

Sorry to break the news to you, but young women in there 20s do not jump from a sexual relationship with one man, to a non-sexual one with the next boyfriend, to a sexual one with the guy she dates after that, etc.

There are plenty of power relations to focus on in life between the sexes and otherwise. To attempt to cast young women of today as being sexual just in order to cater to male desire is laughable.

“Sex In The City” was not an example of women interested in sex just to cater to a man’s desire. There are enough serious matters to contemplate without the static of Greer’s charactiture of sexual relations as they are today and without this manufactured “victimhood.”

She offered the story as an example of how she was not for sexual liberation, as much as she was for sexual freedom. Well, let’s amend that. The sexual freedom of women is all she is interested in. Where is her concern for the freedom of men to choose WITHOUT being subjected to the tyranny of sexual-moralizing? The transaction in her story went down fine. The young woman offered a certain kind of relationship, some of the men she offered it to declined. What is the problem? The only hostility and desire to dominate in that story emanated from Greer. Why does Greer feel the need to control or alter male freedom?

When your personal calculus only considers one person in a two person transaction, you lost all credibility with me.

By: Liz Foulser

Liz Foulser — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:32:01 +0000

This session with Germaine Greer was fascinating, incredibly interesting and worth expanding upon. My only quibble is that Dr. Greer’s soaring intellect crashes earthward when she turns her attention from literature to American politics at the end of the interview. Sarah Palin as a candidate was at best unprepared for the national scene and at worst shallow and uninformed. Can it really be sexist to say this? What if I said the same thing about Dan Quayle?

By: Le Chat Noir

Le Chat Noir — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:59:30 +0000

Please have more feminist thinkers on NPR such as Germain Greer. This interview was excellent and far too short.

By: monique soroka

monique soroka — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:55:01 +0000

Unfortunately I tuned in late for the interview with Germaine Greer but I did hear her say that she thought that pink was vile. She was referring to her nieces trying to provoke her with a “feminine” color. It surprised me that Ms. Greer wouldn’t know that this color is one of the “higher” COLORS OF THE SPECTRUM. It is close to indigo and is a healing ray. (more later) . . I’m using a public computer and the library is closing . . .) alas !

By: Alan Jenkins

Alan Jenkins — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:42:10 +0000

When “On Point” turns away from the political brouhaha of the moment to focus on fundamental cultural questions, the program truly excels. Regardless of one’s particular views of feminism in general and Germaine Greer as an individual thinker, the discussion with Greer made a tremendous contribution in a medium too often consumed by trivia. It was one of “On Point’s” finest hours in recent months. As a man (not a boy) raised by women and men who were forces of nature and as the father of a daughter who has inherited their qualities, I have sent my daughter the link, knowing it will inform her contributions to our future. Keep up the good work! Audaces fortuna iuvat.

By: John Doherty

John Doherty — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:32:30 +0000

Paul W. Tyler’s Post advances the view that the Shakespearian plays were really written by the Earl of Oxford. I have produced a book, The Ignorance of Shakespeare, which strongly challenges this view. The attacks on Shakespeare’s authorship have no firm evidence to support them. If you stare at them closely, they fade away like the Cheshire Cat.

By: Paul W. Tyler

Paul W. Tyler — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:45:01 +0000

There is a preponderance of evidence that the “Plays” could not have been written by William of Stratford-upon-Avon where credit is really due to Edward de Vere the 17th Earl of Oxford; yet, not a word about this controversy by Germaine Greer. Nonetheless, she is an admired intellect of superb and clear philosophical style. Oh! That Tom, “King of the Interview,” might have her return.
Thank you Tom!

By: Gregory Lewis

Gregory Lewis — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:27:13 +0000

I do wish you’d explored, even briefly, the whole question of authorship. While acknowledging that it was “unusual” for Shakespeare to have written his works entirely alone, it would have been worthwhile to have lingered, at least for a moment, on whether or not he was truly the author. It’s certainly an issue that’s perplexed scholars for generations. AND, once this topic was broached, the question of how his better-educated wife might have contributed to his work, i.e., perhaps in the same way Einstein’s more mathematically-gifted wife contributed to his work.

If possible, I’d love to have this question forwarded to Ms. Greer for her consideration. Thanks.

By: Ann

Ann — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:12:07 +0000

RE describing Germaine’s work as ’seminal’ – don’t you mean ‘ovarian’? It amazes me how masculine language lurks about here and there, used to denote ‘power’, ‘grand significance’, etc. Thanks!

By: Carlotta Tyler

Carlotta Tyler — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:59:54 +0000

I contributed today because you had Germaine Greer on your show, Brava!
I am a researcher and Organization Development Consultant specializing in gender issues at work.

I have been patiently waiting for On Point to give more time to the other half of your listening audience, especially the strong elder wise women. The depth and intelligence of this woman is a breath of fresh air @ this time of the collapse of the Old Boys Capitalist Club. Have on some more elder wise feminist women. Forget the balanced stuff. I don’t want ot hear from Phyllis Shafley or Anne Coulter. Let’s talk more about these critical issues of gender, race, class.

And Tom, how do I say this? There’s a maleness to your comments that reveals that you are woefully uninformed to the details of our women’s lives. It shows in your side comments. I suggest a woman co-anchor when you deal with strong women. There’s a contrived edge to the “gee whiz” breathlessness of some of your observations, comments.

By: Lon C Ponschock

Lon C Ponschock — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:18:38 +0000

Germaine Greer talked about Shakespeare’s wife. Virginia Woolf wrote her analogy of Elizabethan women in her imagining of Shakespeare’s sister in “Room Of One’s Own.” The Eileen Atkins performance of “A Room Of One’s Own” lecture is available from libraries.

I would not have known of the Virginia Woolf lecture at Girton had I not read a recent piece by Matt Pascarella in the Feb (2009) issue of The Progressive magazine called “An Interrogation Room Of One’s own.” The article is about the performance artist Coco Fusco.

On Point should do an interview with Coco Fusco as a second generation feminist and performance artist addressing relevant issues for women today. Coco Fusco has also written a slim volume called “A Field Guide For Female Interrogators.” The book begins with an essay in the form of an open letter to Virginia Woolf. And it questions how women are used or deployed in the military. Fusco also addresses this in her live performance called ” A Room Of One’s Own:
Women in the New America.”

I am making these references in the context of the Germaine Greer program to give a wider exposure to the second generation feminists who are actively engaged in asking the difficult questions about what advancement in the military and elsewhere means– and at what cost.

By: Christine W.

Christine W. — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:15:49 +0000

WoW! The intellectual DEPTH of this discussion (no matter each listener’s opinion about the ideas therein) was EXTRAORDINARY!!! I just LOVE this show (and I do PLEDGE to two local NPR stations)!!! From discussions with economists earlier in the week to talking with unemployed people working out a Plan B to this piece with Germaine Greer when she, amongst other great ideas, makes reference to the Tyndale Bible — I LOVE the range!!!

I was in my twenties, but intellectually too YOUNG to understand Greer’s Female Eunuch when it first came out, so listening to her COGENT discussion now was SO much fun for me: I got to see my OWN intellectual development — just how far I’ve come in what I can comprehend and find interesting!! On Point and all the other NPR shows help me CONTINUE to grow intellectually, soulfully, etc. THANK YOU, TOM and YOUR STAFF, and thank you NPR!!!

I truly hope that listeners WILL pledge to their local NPR stations. Just listening on line without pledging will NOT keep these shows coming!!

Thanks!

By: Penelope

Penelope — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:04:09 +0000

What Mark’s post isn’t acknowledging is Greer’s perception of female misogyny (women-hating) that contributes to the subversive (sometimes conniving) activities women have historically employed to get what they need and want in a patriarchal structure. We all do what we have to do to survive in an oppressive atmosphere.

By: Beth

Beth — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:01:26 +0000

About segregated education: I can understand the benefit of all female schools, and the reasoning behind it. But how does separating women make change for the long term? Women have to be able to counter the men in power, not just be able to build the same among themselves. This was my problem with the Lilith Fair – if female musicians were not getting the recognition they deserved, I do not believe an event like Lilith Fair helps. Again, I see the benefit girls can receive from learning together, but how does that prepare them for the rest of the world made up of women and men.

By: Penelope

Penelope — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:00:40 +0000

The only problem with your interview with Germaine Greer is that it didn’t last long enough. I could listen to her conversation/discussion/analysis all day. We need to continue to confront these difficult and often hidden issues in women’s lives. We are a nation who do not revere women; it’s in the language. Consider all the pejorative terms for women and compare them to the ones for men????

By: Jillian

Jillian — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:59:49 +0000

Why is Tom so uncomfortable about the possibility that the perception of Obama as arrogant is perhaps informed by race? Why is that so unlikely Tom?

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:49:30 +0000

I’m sorry ma’am, but my workplace is filled with gossips and power-gamers and treachery and easily half of the people who engage is this are women.

Being female does not exclude someone from human nature. Jerks abound, regardless of how they’re built.

Have a nice day.

By: Mariah Khanna

Mariah Khanna — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:27:38 +0000

Ms. Greer, what Elizabethan character are you most like?
-Mariah Khanna

(and I’m a navy wife, an opinion on my contribution to society)?

By: Janine Murdock

Janine Murdock — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:02:45 +0000

I am not one for silencing dissenting voices, but really, Germaine Greer?? This woman’s hatred and contempt for transgendered women is well known; to have such a person on your show lends credence to that view, regardless of the interview’s subject matter.