Commodification, Revolution, and Oppression in Germaine Greers The Female Eunuch

In her landmark 1970 book The Female Eunuch, feminist scholar Germaine Greer describes successful, feminine women as the white mans black man, the professional nigger[.][1] Women can only achieve high positions within male-dominated structures, Greer argues, by using their feminine wiles to manipulate mens guilts and hidden desires[.][2] Forced to beg for any improvement in their social status, women have not been able to develop an authentic self; they are impotent, insecure, inferior beings.[3] In order to liberate themselves, women must reject the bondage of marriage and child-bearing and embrace their own sexual agency, rather than allowing themselves to be treated as sexual objects. Highly influential and controversial, Greers polemical work reveals the ways in which purportedly personal afflictions such as body image, self esteem, and a lack of sexual pleasure are linked to larger patriarchal and capitalist social structures. The Female Eunuch implores women to stand together in order to recognize the ways in which they have collectively been physically and psychologically devalued. However, Greers analysis of the plight of the white, middle-class, able-bodied, cisgendered woman Others racialized, poor, trans, and other marginalized women. This paper will argue that Germaine Greers The Female Eunuch reproduces the oppressive hierarchies it seeks to challenge by viewing gender in isolation. Greer fails to recognize that womens experiences of gender-based oppression cannot be separated from the oppression they experience based on other aspects of their identities. Greers book exemplifies the second-wave slogan the personal is political. Drawing on historical, biological, and sociological examples, Greer analyzes the ways in which white, middle-class women in the United States are socialized into adhering to repressive standards of the Eternal Feminine stereotype, which is yoked to the capitalist commodification of women. The Eternal Feminine is the ultimate Sexual Object, desired by all but lacking her own sexual agency.[4] As a commodity, a womans value is determined by how closely she conforms to the stereotype as well as by the laws of supply and demand; men want her because she is a commonly recognized [area] of value[.][5]Capitalist production works to sustain the feminine stereotype; she is made to flaunt and purchase prestigious goods as the chief spender as well as the chief symbol of spending ability and monetary success.[6] In addition to furthering capitalism by purchasing, Greer describes women as objects available to male buyer[s][.][7] Because they are socialized into being objects rather than active agents, women learn to suppress their sexual desires. The condition of attempting to appear sexually desirable and yet sexless is what Germaine Greer calls the condition of being a female eunuch.[8] Although the Eternal Feminine stereotype is idealized, it is not an empowering ideal for women. Greer criticizes the ways in which the objectification of white womens bodies denies them the ability to find joy and freedom in their own bodies.[9] Greer places herself in opposition to medical and psychiatric discourses that situate themselves as experts on women[10] and advocates a revolutionary overhaul in the way women see themselves, their worth, and their roles.[11] Women must embrace their own sexual desires, and reclaim the study of their own bodies.[12] Rather than attempting to work within existing social norms and structures, Greer advocates the formation of a new social order that questions the most basic assumptions about feminine normality[.][13] A new social order that is emancipatory for women must reformulate marriage and family life because of their insistence on the castration of women[14]; women should refuse the bondage of marriage,[15] and, if married, examine the institution of marriage in its wider social context in order to better understand their position.[16] Further, this new social order must be based on solidarity and women-driven networks that foster cooperation, sympathy and love.[17] Although it is dependant on womens sexual and social liberation, the revolution Greer advocates will also liberate men, who are restricted by their roles as oppressors.[18] Greer emphasizes that [t]he end cannot justify the means; the goal of female emancipation does not justify reproducing oppressive structures and behaviours in the process.[19]

However, Germaine Greers call for a new social order based on supportive collective networks is undermined by the hierarchies she constructs between women who are emancipated and those who are not. Greer creates a distinction between [e]nlightened women and Others through her use of pejorative language and broad generalizations. Although she places great emphasis on womens sexual autonomy, she denigrates a woman who chooses to sleep with a married man as a shameless hussy[.][20] Women who continue to feel invested in societal beauty ideals are feminine parasites[.][21] The only enlightened women, for Greer, are those who have sex in the female superior position,[22] are educated,[23] thin,[24]fight exploitation in the workforce by finding equally-paid jobs,[25] take care of their health but do not pay attention to how they dress or how they look,[26] take up radical actions[,][27] and refuse to wear false eyelashes.[28] Outside the scope of Greers analysis are poor women,[29] transsexual and transgendered women,[30] fat women (Greer argues that, historically, all repressed, indolent people have been fat[31] and describes womens unadorned bodies as disgusting[32]), female faggot[s],[33] and feminine women.[34] Further, her use of dehumanizing and racist terms such as buck negro[,][35] savages[,][36] black faggots[,][37] and piccaninny[38] make it clear that Greer also excludes women of colour from her analysis. The contrast between Greers idealized female revolution and the ways in which she talks about women is jarring. Greer argues that such emancipated women are more noble than those who do not examine their oppression in the manner she advocates. In doing so, Greer sets up a hierarchy of life choices that undermines her concept of sisterhood.[39] As Greer herself says, [i]t is not a sign of revolution when the oppressed adopt the manners of the oppressors and practise oppression on their own behalf[.][40] Although her analysis of the impacts of capitalism on personal relationships and on the way in which women are constructed as commodities could be revolutionary for white, cisgendered, privileged, able-bodied women, the vast majority of women are excluded from Greers analysis and are further marginalized as less important Others, whose experiences of oppression (related not only to gender but also to other aspects of their identity) are irrelevant. Greers text is intended to shock a complacent public into action and to raise awareness about womens plight. However, her broad generalizations about women and her use of oppressive, bigoted language oversimplifies complex social problems and reinforces hierarchies that posit certain (white, economically privileged) lives, bodies, and experiences over others. As such, her arguments must be seen as the result of a historically and contextually specific female experience, rather than as a liberating framework for revolution. Greers revolution might reverse certain patterns of male dominance, but her complete ignorance of intersectional approaches show that an equally oppressive hierarchy would be reinstated in her new social order.

1. Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (1970; repr., London: Harper Perennial, 2006), 353. 2. Ibid., 353. 3. Ibid., 166. 4. Ibid., 67. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 64. 7. Ibid., 41.

8. Ibid., 78. 9. Ibid., 41. 10. Ibid., 23. 11. Ibid., 13. 12. Ibid., 11, 54. 13. Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (1970; repr., London: Harper Perennial, 2006), 14, 17. 14. Ibid., 111. 15. Ibid., 358. 16. Ibid., 362-363. 17. Ibid., 23. 18. Ibid., 21. 19. Ibid., 23. 20. Ibid., 109. 21. Ibid., 26. 22. Ibid., 48. 23. Ibid., 331. 24. Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (1970; repr., London: Harper Perennial, 2006), 38. 25. Ibid., 150. 26. Ibid., 364. 27. Ibid., 23. 28. Ibid., 365. 29. Ibid., 11. 30. Ibid., 9, 70.

31. Ibid., 38. 32. Ibid., 293. 33. Ibid., 86. 34. Ibid., 72. 35. Ibid., 43. 36. Ibid., 129. 37. Ibid., 159. 38. Ibid., 168. 39. Ibid., 22. 40. Ibid., 353.