If she's so great, how come so many pigs dig her? germaine greer and the malestream press

Abstract

The quotation in the title has been attributed as Robyn Morgans response to Germaine Greers television debate with Norman Mailer. This paper will explore Germaine Greers turbulent relationship with the mainstream press both in Australia and abroad and will attempt to determine whether the flamboyant Dr Greer added a much needed patina of glamour to the movement or merely used feminism as yet another way to cash in on the counter-culture. It demonstrates the ability of the media to manipulate a feminism not grounded in an analysis of male power. Addressing the National Press Club in Washington in 1971, Germaine Greer described herself as a media freak. It was a most apt description. While in America, Greer had received more press coverage than any other feminist. During her Australian tour five years later, the media, which had only given cursory and scurrilous coverage to the movement, began to devote hundreds of column inches to the womens movement. So much so that one journalist claimed that there had been a discernible change in attitude within a few weeks of Greers stay.[1] It had been the same in England.[2] Greer was unquestionably the media star of second-wave feminism. She was launched on a coast-to-coast American tour by her publishers, McGraw-Hill, in the spring of 1971 and the mass media were quick to capitalise on her ready wit and unconventional behaviour. She became the toast of the talk shows. A book launching at which she spoke in New York had to be rescheduled in order to accommodate all the members of the press who wanted to attend.[3] She was named Woman of the Year in Great Britain in 1971 and Playboy Journalist of the Year in the USA in 1972. Greer was dubbed the high priestess of womens liberation. She GERMAINE GREER AND THE MALESTREAM PRESS

‘Steve is twice the Aussie icon you will ever be’: Germaine Greer, the Crocodile Hunter’s death, and nationalistic misogyny

“…As one of the world's most iconic feminists, Greer has always been a provocateur and many, including feminists, have responded at best ambivalently to her and her particular way of performing feminism in the mediasphere. As I (Taylor, 2014(Taylor, , 2016 and others (Sheehan, 2016;Sheridan et al, 2000;Spongberg, 1993) have argued, many feminists have heavily criticised Greer's strategy of actively cultivating media attention, seeing it as a lamentable form of self-commodification. In popular discourse, though, when The Female Eunuch (Greer, 1970) was first published, Greer was widely celebrated; for example, American Life magazine famously dubbed her 'The saucy feminist even men like', and it was her heterosexual desirability especially that resulted in her being seen as more palatable than some other second-wave feminists (Taylor, 2014).…”

‘Door Bitches of Club Feminism’?: Academia and Feminist Competency

“…Yet, while her scholarly work is published and often well-received in Australia, she is known primarily as a celebrity feminist with a penchant for intervening in national conversations on a range of issues from the vantage point of an ostensible outsider, a resident of Britain, rather than as an Australian or an academic feminist (Lilburn et al, 2000). Her status within Australian feminism is also ambiguous, given that her early fame as the author of The Female Eunuch set her apart from the local women's movement (Spongberg, 1993). In the public consciousness, Greer's status as a well-known feminist is unquestionable -she is the best-known feminist taking both our surveys and local media commentary as an indicationbut her fame in Australia exceeds and resists the limits of 'academic feminist'.…”

‘Revolution for the hell of it’: the transatlantic genesis and serial provocations ofThe Female Eunuch

“…As biographer Christine Wallace put it, The Female Eunuch became 'feminism's smash-hit book' (Wallace 1997, 190). Greer became a 'media star', a 'megastar', the toast of the talk shows, an instant celebrity, or, in the words of women's studies scholars, 'a feminist pioneer in the celebrity zone' (Spongberg 1993;Lilburn, Magarey, and Sheridan 2000, 335).…”