Although she explicitly forswore any sequel to her first book-on the grounds that, when the time came, a younger woman would have to write it-now, like a congressional supporter of term limits discovering the virtues of experience, she has decided that “it’s time to get angry again.” And so The Whole Woman-a title that invites confusion with Marabel Morgan’s antithetical The Total Woman (Morgan advises doting on one’s husband 24 hours a day)-picks up where The Female Eunuch left off. This clearly could not be allowed to continue. Greer has been reasonably prolific over the past 30 years, but other authors have come along to shock while she has gradually acquired the patina of an object surviving more or less unaltered from a previous age.

The radical, erudite, witty Greer was then, as she is now, a sui-generis feminist- mutatis mutandis, a kind of Camille Paglia of the 70’s. For anyone interested in the future of womanhood, The Whole Woman is a must-read.Three decades ago, the English writer Germaine Greer erupted into the world with The Female Eunuch, a cleverly titled book whose core argument, as she recently summarized it, was that “every girl child is conceived as a whole woman but from the time of her birth to her death she is progressively disabled.” As summary, that is accurate enough, but it fails to capture the qualities in the book that provoked such a remarkable mixture of admiration and outrage when it was published. Whether it's liposuction or abortion, Barbie or Lady Diana, housework or sex work, Greer always has an opinion, and as one of the most brilliant, glamorous, and dynamic feminists of all time, her opinions matter. She mordantly attacks 'lifestyle feminists' who blithely believe they can have it all, and argues for a fuller, more organic idea of womanhood. With passionate rhetoric, outrageous humor, and the authority of a lifetime of thought and observation, she trains a sharp eye on the issues women face at the turn of the century.įrom the workplace to the kitchen, from the supermarket to the bedroom, Greer exposes the innumerable forms of insidious discrimination and exploitation that continue to plague women around the globe. In this thoroughly engaging new book, the fervent, rollicking, straight-shooting Greer, is, as ever, 'the ultimate agent provocateur' ( Mirabella).

No feminist writer can match her for eloquence or energy none makes laugh the way she does.'- The Washington Post Thirty years after the publication of The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer is back with the sequel she vowed never to write.

The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer