Name: The Female Eunuch
Rating: 4.3 (39 reviews)
Author: Germaine Greer

What’s in it for me? Learn what women have in common with eunuchs.

Feminism made great strides in the twentieth century. Almost everywhere in the world, feminists have won the battle for women’s right to vote and own property.

But there is still a long way to go toward achieving true social equality between men and women. Most importantly, women’s reproductive rights and ownership of both their bodies and choices are still being debated. The fight to be respected goes on.

Germaine Greer, a major voice of the feminist movement, addressed these issues in her seminal text,

The Female Eunuch. It was published in 1970, but many of her ideas remain as relevant as ever.

These blinks explain her theories.

You’ll also learn

why poetry and paintings that celebrate female beauty are anything but flattering;
why even female leads in comic books are not all that feminist; and
why vaginal orgasms are so rare.

Society has castrated women.

The qualities that society values in a woman match those of a eunuch – subservience and sexlessness.

Women are expected to be attentive, agreeable and patient. Ambition, confidence and any other signs of a strong personality aren’t tolerated. Rather than actively seeking and taking what they want from the world, women should wait until they’re told what to do. They should show mindless joy when given a gift, demonstrate unfailing devotion to their families and a passionless desire for their husbands.

In pop culture, dominant women typically appear as one of two stereotypes – the cunning and sexy woman or the athletic and arrogant woman.

Whether it’s a blockbuster, a soap opera or a comic book, these dominant female characters are inevitably tamed or overpowered by the hero at the story’s end. Audiences are taught that “dominant” qualities in women, while enticing, will only be detrimental to a man unless he defeats them.

It often seems that the entire concept of “woman” is all aesthetics and no substance. Even the woman’s body should be soft and non-threatening, devoid of signs of power or maturity.

The true essence of the woman is lost as media and brands push women to change their appearances to fit this artificial norm.

By requiring women to behave and appear as if they were castrated, societal norms also communicate the fact that women cannot and should not play a truly equal role in public – or in private.

Our cultural definition of heterosexual sex limits the sexual potential of women.

The way we talk about sex promotes the idea that women are passive receptacles. Though a greater awareness of her own desires makes sex more enjoyable for a woman – as well as her partner – many women don’t prioritize their sexual pleasure at all.

Instead, women are taught to treat sex as something to give in exchange for commitment.

Women have more opportunities than ever, but still aren’t being taught to take advantage of them.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a women’s movement called the suffragettes fought to give wives and daughters the right to vote and get out of the house. They succeeded, and the subsequent generations of feminists secured many other victories.

Despite this, girls today are still conditioned from a young age to live cautiously, not ambitiously. While young boys are given the freedom to run wild and grow strong, young girls are taught to play with dolls, sit still and stay close to their mothers. Indeed, girls grow up dependent on their mothers, which prepares them for dependency on their husbands in their adult life.

Women are required to hide their own bodies and perform the male conception of gentle femininity.

Men have long been the arbiters of femininity. It is up to women to reject these restrictive definitions of femininity and bring new ones into the world.

Women must start by eliminating the stereotype of the eternal feminine. Poets and painters throughout history have depicted women as fragile and vulnerable, likening them to delicate flowers or capturing them in images of repose and various states of undress. The eternal feminine makes women nothing more than alluring objects that can be owned by men and aspired to as a model by other women.

Women must reject their current role in society to revolutionize it.

Why do women find men in uniforms, from cops to military men, so alluring? Women have learned to tacitly or explicitly condone violence.

If women stopped thinking of violence as heroic, men would have far less incentive to risk their own lives and those of others in dangerous acts. Just as women are under pressure to play the damsel in distress, swept off their feet by male machismo, men are forced into the role of the brave and aggressive hero. Women should instead only let themselves be impressed by intellectual bravery.

Kernaussagen in The Female Eunuch