The Whole Woman

published	May 11th 1999 by Knopf
binding	Hardcover
isbn	0375407472 (isbn13: 9780375407475)
pages	384
description	For women born in the immediate postwar period, there were the years BG and AG--"before Greer" and "after Greer." It's all too eas...more [close] For women born in the immediate postwar period, there were the years BG and AG--"before Greer" and "after Greer." It's all too easy to underestimate its influence, but the fact is that in 1970 every self-respecting woman on the Left owned a copy of The Female Eunuch. Thirty years later, Germaine Greer is ready to get angry again. In The Whole Woman, she analyzes, among other issues, the invasive ways in which the health industry persuades women to have their bodies and reproductive systems "managed." Greer lays out the facts about the high failure rate and devastating side effects of in vitro fertilization and the incongruence between the "success" of breast implants in achieving the "perfect" mammary to please men and the continuing failures in detecting and treating increasingly prevalent breast cancer. Greer's polemic has the confident virtuosity of wit and maturity. Celebrating women's successes, The Whole Woman is a more positive book than The Female Eunuch. Her unique combination of outrageous humor and assertiveness continues to lead the way forward for women who want to take control of their lives. --Lisa Jardine, Amazon.co.uk [close]
date added	09-03-07 edit book

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Chai rated it:

(review of isbn 0385720033)

03/16/08

bookshelves: i-own

Read in March, 2008

Intense, extreme but a very powerful book. I'd have to reread to really understand and absorb everything, but my general impression from the first read-through was that I didn't completely agree with everything. It wasn't that I disagreed vehemently, it was more the fact that some of her ideas were the extreme truth of what I believe.

Very interesting after being used to the rather passive, soft feminism that I usually read (and I understand her criticisms of such femnism) but dare I say, so...more Intense, extreme but a very powerful book. I'd have to reread to really understand and absorb everything, but my general impression from the first read-through was that I didn't completely agree with everything. It wasn't that I disagreed vehemently, it was more the fact that some of her ideas were the extreme truth of what I believe.

Very interesting after being used to the rather passive, soft feminism that I usually read (and I understand her criticisms of such femnism) but dare I say, some of Greer's angry statements came across as a little too fierce, a little too over-the-top? I'm personally in a heterosexual relationship and my partner has never given me reason to believe that he is anything like the men that Greer uses as examples. I know she claims it's feminism, but I would have liked to have not felt as if I was some sort of failed feminist just because I like (some) men, struggle with PMS, keep my house clean (not because I feel pressured to, or my partner demands or expects it) and many other things.

My partner immediately looked petrified that I was reading a Greer book (although he's, dare I say, a feminist). I don't really blame him, it seems that she is of the belief that all men are potential rapists, child molesters and general penis-driven scumbags.

I'm of the belief that women can achieve equality and or liberation without vicious man-hating, without bigotry. In fact, the very quote she used from Judith Lorber represents my sentiments exactly, 'When we no longer ask 'boy or girl?' in order to start gendering an infant, when the information is as irrelevant as the colour of the child's eyes (but not yet the color of skin), then and only then will women and men be socially interchangable and really equal. And when that happens there will no longer be any need for gender at all.'

Exactly.

I don't think it's about pushing men down and standing on them in order to reach 'liberation'. It just breeds contempt and hatred. If men spoke of women, like Greer does of men, it would be unacceptable and probably wouldn't be published. When Greer isn't accusing men of such atocities, generalising them as monsters - I dig her. I do believe that things are still screwed up in the world, things are still unfair and some men, a lot of men, are still treating women poorly. This book alerts one to that, in fact, I needed the wake up call.

I did enjoy the majority of what Greer has to say particularly how consumerism affects the modern women. Greer doesn't hold back, she makes no apologies and she is extremely inspiring. She raises light to many things that I have lazily been ignoring ... sadly, I'm just so used to how things have become. Such as when I look at the women in the celebrity limelight today, I know we've still got a hell of a way to go. Most of them seem to still be liposuctioned, primped, preened, fake titted, starving, tortured blow up dolls.

I still catch myself occasionally being depressed after reading the latest gossip mag in the doctor's office, sad that I'm showing signs of aging at 24, my boobs are sagging after bearing a child, my tummy is scarred and my jowls are jiggly. I only get sad about this because so often, it is slammed into me that my appearance is what all the 'beautiful women' are struggling to escape from.

I live for the day when happy, healthy, powerful, real women take over Hollywood, the boardrooms and the world. I'm tired of Ashley Simpson's anorexic legs & Courtney Love's lifted, ridiculous face. I understand these women have become the way they are because of this shoddy belief system of what women are meant to be but where are the women proving them that they're wrong? Come on, get to it! ...less

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