The above is called “fun with Photo Booth at 4 a.m.” Leonidas is attacking from behind. *cough*
Germaine Greer hates me. I know it. For reals.
As I go about my days, fiddling with fairy tales, hunting for a good pair of platform sandals, drinking bad instant coffee, and dealing with my homicidal rage at Ben from “Lost,” I often pause and wonder – “Would Germaine approve?”
The answer is always “NO. Especially if you have to ask to begin with.” Hence, she hates me. And, she hates you too, most likely.
We are, of course, in exalted company. Germaine doesn’t like supermarkets, the colour pink, waitresses who delight in their own décolletage (of course, it’s always been OK for Ms. Greer to delight in her own – she’s a classy intellectual, not some trashy tart), and Hillary Clinton. She also hates transgender people, Steve Irwin, Princess Diana, and, well, pretty much anyone who takes the world’s attention away from Germaine Greer.
Being the subject of Germaine Greer’s hate is like having a pissed-off Spartan barrel down upon you with spear aloft. The reason for this has to do with the fact that Ms. Greer has made an entire career out hating things. Back in the day, she hated women if they happened to be too timid. Now she hates them if they are too brash.
You can’t win someone like that. You don’t even want to try. You’ll end up in a broom closet somewhere, sucking your thumb and whimpering for Valium.
Wherein lies the appeal of King Leoni… Germaine Greer? Is it because most people agree with her? I don’t think so. I think it has to do with the fact that there is something delicious about being hated in this fashion.
Consider this: I own a few pink wardrobe items. They’re not particularly outlandish, and, the sad truth is, most of them aren’t even that well-made. So, I don’t get particularly excited when I throw my closet open and discover that one of the few clean things left is a pale-pink oxford shirt I should have replaced at least a year ago… Until I read Greer’s diatribe against pink, that is.
Suddenly, wearing that pale-pink oxford shirt that should have been replaced at least a year ago is a STATEMENT. It is a PROVOCATION.
It is saying, “bugger off, Germaine, you patronizing, pseudo-feminist kill-joy, I will wear whatever I damn please.” It is saying, “I am among the ranks of Steve Irwin and Princess Diana!” It is saying, “tonight! We dine! In pink!”
It is also, according to Germaine, an action that invokes genitalia and, ah, other body parts. Which is just the icing on the cake, really, because while I always want to be exciting and artfully suggestive, sometimes, it’s just too much work. Now, all I have to do is put on a damn oxford shirt, and I’m practically Nabokov.
Same goes for cleavage. And being able to navigate the produce aisle.
Amazing, really, how much meaning and purpose can be found in the most ordinary tasks and abilities if Gerard… I mean, Germaine, shows you the way.
I can’t wait for Germaine Greer to stumble upon “Lost.” Or write a diatribe about bad instant coffee.
Natalia A. 
Heh, thanks, I’ll take the Spartans, in pink.
She is quite judgmental, isn’t she? You, on the other hand, are fabulous. Thanks for standing up for pink, which I too have been known to wear without realising how artful I am.
yeah germaine’s a bit of a hater- but that’s what makes her fun and controversial- it’s always interesting what she’s going to say. i’m pretty sure she’ll hate me too- she hated andrew denton when she went on his show and he just smiled and goes “that’s a shame since i admire her so much.”
she’s a cranky cat but she’s written some pretty good books.
I can’t even say that I’m a huge fan of her books. I think “The Female Eunuch” did serve a good purpose, but I agree with the Salon writer who said that Greer did a lot of good in this world in spite of herself.
Perhaps I am also being a hater now. 😦
Oh, this was gold.
I get frustrated when the older Australian feminist bloggers express great surprise that younger feminists won’t have a bar of Greer. It may be tongue-in-cheek, but it highlights why pretty damned well.
I think Greer did a lot of good in her “The Female Eunuch” days, but “The Whole Woman” was just an exercise in woman hating: each chapter was a half-deranged rant against some different group of women. Alas, unlike Sarah, it’s not so easy to declare Greer to be “fun” when you happen to be in some of those groups she’s preaching hate against.
I don’t even know (or particularly care) who Germaine Greer is, but you are, as always, a delight to read. 🙂
If you don’t know or care who Germaine is… she hates you double.
😉
“If you don’t know or care who Germaine is… she hates you double.”
Hmm, I’ve never checked out her work before. I want to now though, because it sounds like we have a lot in common.
I agree re: the older feminists
Greer is not as relevant or as influential as in her heyday forty years ago – she is a Milton Berle not a George Burns
People in Australia are getting quite sick of Germaine Greer. It seems that she needs to say something that is truly shocking, just to get her name mentioned in the newspaper. Fancy criticizing Steve Irwin, now he was a true Australian and a great achiever. Steve Irwin went about his own business, educating people about wildlife and protecting wildlife species from extinction.
Unlike Germaine, an extremely cantankerous and bitter intellectual, who thinks she can tell the entire female population on how one ought to think and live their lives. Well personally I am sick of it. Women should live their lives happily; act, think, wear, speak, agree, disagree, love, on whatever they feel is appropriate for them.
I think it is absolutely ironic … women in western society have truly progressed and do not allow men to dictate how they should live my lives, yet Germaine thinks she has the right to tell women how to think and live! Germaine should get a life!
Mmm, I hate to break it to you but I don’t think Germaine Greer is thinking about you at all.
As you seem to know well, writing opinion pieces requires that you be a bit dramatic. The Australian media also love to reduce everything to soundbites, which means Greer’s arguments are often wrongly reported.
For a long time into the future Greer will be discussed for the very important role she has played in the advancement of women.
Sorry if that doesn’t fit into your post mod view of feminism where fighting to dress in short skirts is far more important than, say, the plight of women working in sweat shops.
Don’t agree with everything Greer says, but her intellectual clout certainly demands more than just snarky adolescent responses that scream “look at moi”.
Germaine, honey, is that you??? Please tell me more about the plight of women! ‘Cause I just wouldn’t know!
I especially want to hear that part about all those poor women who are being prevented from having their genitals mutilated. Not to mention that part about how the evil Borg… I mean, transgender folk, are taking over the universe.
I think that “intellectual clout” would be a vast over-statement to describe Germaine–she is a polemicist, pure and simple. Sustained research has *never* been her forte, but her recent work has been little more than cheap point-scoring, trading more in vicious, personal insults than critical analysis.
>>>Sorry if that doesn’t fit into your post mod view of feminism where fighting to dress in short skirts is far more important than, say, the plight of women working in sweat shops.
I hate to break it to you, but Ms Greer spends most of her time now criticising affluent white women’s clothing and sexualisation. Real women’s problems, not really on her radar.
And yes, her repeated attacks on transgendered people have been hateful.
None of this is the mark of a great feminist icon or thinker, sadly.
Natasha, I feel for you. When you encounter sexual assault (I want to tell you that won’t happen but statistics are not on your side… nor is your blindness of the way the world works), you will run straight back to the women that you “cleverly” deride: women who have known what we are up against all along.
Your “me” generation juggernaut is headed for disaster as fast as your tight skirts and corset-tops will allow. So, at the very least, do us the courtesy of not telling us we didn’t warn you.
Read Janice Raymond. If you can stand the intellectual rigor.
As opposed to Greer’s snarky adolescent whinges about the color pink and cleavage? Whinges that just scream “look at me?”
She’s increasingly irrelevant, misogynist, narrowly focused, and bigoted.
>>you will run straight back to the women that you “cleverly” deride: women who have known what we are up against all along.>>
ahahahaha. the intellectual rigor of JANICE RAYMOND, oh my wordies.
Janice “transsexuals are out to steal my precious bodily fluids! my current sexual weirdnesses are in no way informed by my former status as a nun! I write like a dyspeptic emy! I have springs coming out of my head!” Raymond, that is.
no, really, that was glorious, just lovely.
“you’ll beeee soooooorrrrrrrryyyyyyyy”
Yes. Yes, I’m sure that someday, everyone who thinks y’all are acting like a bunch of hateful, irrelevant, fundamentalist plonkers will SEE the light and come running back to bury our heads in your nurturing matriarchal egalitarian-type bosoms.
Hold your breath until that happens, why don’t you?
“emu,” dammit.
It ain’t a party ’till FA shows up.
Seriously, I read your comment here, and what I basically got was:
“You need a good raping to make you realize that I am right.”
Sound familiar? Anyone else use that kind of “logic”? Oh, that’s right, the MRA’s do.
I prefer to think of you as an MRA in disguise, because you’re just too big of a joke otherwise.
And as for Raymond – read her. Was utterly unimpressed. Playing Tetris probably did more for my brain in the long run.
I am not surprised to see my comments wilfully misinterpreted here.
The author of this blog should just feel lucky that nothing bad has happened to her. Maybe she will remain in blissful ignorance for the rest of her life.
Janice Raymond has done more harm to feminism than good through her declaration of transsexual women as the enemy and has not done the lesbian community any favors by trying to dictate to us how we should be allowed to have sex.
Holding onto “icons” like her just means you’re out of touch with the modern world. Fundamentalist icons. It’s hysterical that you’ll call us fundamentalist in one breath and praise Janice Raymond in the next. I suppose next you’ll be telling us all about David Duke’s progressive race relation ideas.
That is, “Fundamentalist icons like her hold feminism back, and keep radical feminists focused on issues that really should not attract their anger.”
And whoops, somehow I read part of Belledame’s post as FA’s. Weird. FA didn’t say anything about fundamentalism, but my points about Raymond stand: She’s a hate-monger and a bigot, and not at all an admirable feminist.
Agreed on Raymond.
FA, I wasn’t going to go there, but since you seem hell-bent on getting some sort of reaction from on personal issues… Don’t talk to me about bad experiences. Do not presume to tell me what my experiences are, for that matter. I am not going to play bullshit Oppression Olympics with you either. I am not going to discuss my personal life with a condescending asshole like you.
For some reason, people like you inevitably assume that in order for someone like me to criticize Greer, or Raymond for that matter, I must be living in fantasy land. And yes, you do think that people like me need to be raped in order for said fantasy to come crashing down… That much was obvious from your comments, and willful misrepresentation is not at all what’s going on here.
You just don’t want to take responsibility for your own hateful crap.
I prefer to think of you as an MRA troll than someone who has anything to do with feminism. Either way, you’re creepy and sad.
Lisa, Raymond and Greer are women who achieved a lot. We can see that just by the fact that people talk about them, people, even men, are influenced by them. They have made a difference
People get angry with them because neither sugarcoats.
Natalia, maybe I am reading too much into your blog, but it all seems to be about celebrating men to me, whether Alex Garland or someone else. Doesn’t strike me like the blog of a woman who knows a thing or two about how most men work.
funny….I just used that exact picture for part of a powerpoint presentation on machismo and violence….i think its scary too…..
‘When you’re finally raped you’ll truly understand feminism’ seems to be the “feminist” version of Godwin’s Law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
No, I get angry with Greer because every time I see writing from her lately, it’s misogynist. Because she set out to destroy a woman’s career because that woman was trans. I get angry with Janice Raymond because she wrote a book length hate screed about trans women that was informed solely by her prejudices and biases and not at all by reality. She was also responsible for a bit of a witch hunt to have Sandy Stone removed from Olivia Records just because Sandy was trans.
The fact that they have influenced so many people just means there’s that many more bigots to deal with. No thanks.
Preach it, Lisa.
Ted Bundy gets talked about a lot. And he’s influenced copycat killers as well. Should we admire him as well?
(Note: I don’t think Greer and Raymond are anything like Bundy, but, you know… the absurdity of this whole “people noticed this person, so they MUST be great” is really grating on me).
Indeed.
The last thing I read from Greer was extensive betching that too many women are showing cleavage. Yeah, that’s totally about feminism right there – shaming women because our bodies are visible.
Include me out, thanks. I prefer my feminism to make sense.
Natalia
I’ll see the “people have heard about them, they must be great” and raise you a “If they’re pissing you off, they must be doing something right”. It’ll cost you a “but they have a degree” to stay in the game.
does anyone know the meaning of the word Misandrist
Germaine Greer and many other 2nd wave feminists are haters that are out of touch in today’s world. The hate that is against everyone who doesn’t agree with feminists like what Germaine Greer preaches are classified as anti-women. Feminism needs something new than liberal feminism that dominates the face of feminism today and its hurting everyone. Feminism is where is at today because of feminists like Germaine Greer that have turned it into a power tool.
What would be really nice is that if Germaine Greer would stop saying sexist and how pedophilia is good with prepubescent boys and promote some common sense.
Misandry means hatred of men or boys and yes its around a lot more than people give it credit for.