A.Greer

Advantages: Some interesting concepts
Disadvantages: Incoherent, huge assumptions

...Fed up with the alleged decline of feminism, or its subsumption into male late capitalist society, Germaine Greer’s latest offering loudly proclaims that 'it is time to get angry again'. Greer wants to expose the oppression and contradictions at the heart of the perceived female liberation that we regard as having been achieved over the last two decades. Her basic arguments are that the majority of women remain massively oppressed within the home, while at the same time having to go out to work, and are in constant danger from violent and oppressive male partners. She regards women as the primary victims of marketing which generates the false consciousness that they should be the 'model and a mother' of the dreaded Actimel adverts. Female success in the professions is derided by Greer, who regards career women as ultimately hated... Read review

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Advantages: Very interesting and often surprising viewpoints
Disadvantages: One person's opinions, therefore not an overview of millennial feminism

...The Whole Woman is the first book I've read on feminism. Sure, I had read articles on feminism and there is a lot of feminism portrayed in various media, but never before have I taken the time to read a book on the subject. Germaine Greer is an acquired taste - her views are often seen as controversial and they are only one woman's perspective of feminism. This isn't a commentary on feminism: it is a set of personal explanations and recommendations. The book is split into sections, which are divided into smaller chapters. The titles used for these chapters explain the subject matter without frills; they include 'sex' 'girlpower' 'breasts' and 'sisters'. This makes the book seem a bit like Greer picking topics out of a hat to rant about, which is great in some ways but maybe a little chaotic in others. The most refreshing thing about... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: not a boring moment, provocative, interesting, stimulating
Disadvantages: mix-and-match as she sees fit, self-limiting, fairly shallow and untidy

..."...women always did shit work; now that the only work there is is shit work, men are unemployed." Surely, this is the reason to fight agains shit work, not the men? Germaine Greer did it again 30 years after the first bombshell. I have not read 'Female Eunuch' (I was too young when it was newly shocking but to old to study it as a classic), but I have now read the "Whole Woman" and it is wonderful. Brilliant, sparkly (no, really!) read , persuasive and angry, argumentative and irreverent, as refreshing and thought-provoking as anything I read since I suffered last Pilger attack. It's also annoying, sloppily argumented, and, ultimately, because of its fundamental assumption, very unsatisfactory. On the surface it seems to make many of general 'people issues' more real, more compelling via the method of rephrasing them as 'women... Read review

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