First published in Eureka Street on 22 March 2010.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch, an impassioned call to arms written by a woman who became the pin-up girl of feminism, loved and hated with equal passion by women and men alike. Of the many feminist manifestos published over the years, this has been one of the most influential. The very fact that it continues to incite such vociferous debate today attests to this.
In marking the book's anniversary, a debate has broken out in the Australian media around the impact and relevance of the ideas articulated in The Female Eunuch to women and society at large. This debate is not a new one. In many ways it rehashes critiques of Greer and her book that have flourished since its publication in 1970.
A recurring criticism is that the book's impact on women has been negligible, and that the feminism it propounds is of little relevance in today's world, with some going so far as to argue that it was never really relevant. These arguments are often based more on attacks on Greer personally, and feminism generally, than considered critiques of the value of the feminist agenda set out in The Female Eunuch.
By focusing their arguments on demonstrating how Greer has failed to convert all women to feminism, pointing out for instance that women love to shop, wear make-up and high-heels, get 'brazilians', and be stay-at-home-mums, critics (notably, and most recently, Louis Nowra, writing in The Monthly) miss her point entirely.
Greer's work is not a directive to women, it is a call to arms: a polemic designed to mobilise women to recognise and shake off the myriad shackles that prevent them from realising their full potential as free and equal members of human society.
Critically, it places the responsibility for women's situations squarely on women themselves: women must decide for themselves to fight for their freedom, and they must decide for themselves how they're going to go about it.
By picking out incendiary and highly contextual phrases from The Female Eunuch and taking them literally, as many do, Greer's critics are liable to draw conclusions that are divorced from the reality of the book.
For instance, some commentators take Greer's criticism of women spending their money on clothes, make-up and cosmetic surgery as a condemnation of women who do such things, and as an attack on the