Female Eunuch, The.
“The Cage Door Has Been Opened…”
Greer, Germaine. The Female Eunuch. (London): MacGibbon & Kee, (1970).
8vo.; handful of pencil ticks throughout; agent’s label affixed to half-title; ink signature above; page edges stained; brown wrappers; wrappers fragile; printed title label affixed to upper cover; pen marks and tape on upper and lower covers; upper cover wrinkled. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Uncorrected proof of Greer’s first book, a polemic which established her as one of the most authoritative voices of the feminist movement. It was translated into 12 languages. The annotations are minor and it is unclear whether or not they were incorporated into the book; for example, the opening section is labeled “Summary,” but the annotation suggests changing it to “Introduction.”
Divided into five parts – Body, Soul, Love, Hate and Revolution – and subdivided according to each category; for example, “Body” is broken down into Gender, Bones, Curves, Hair, Sex and The Wicked Womb. In each section, Greer deconstructs society’s male-constructed views of women’s body, experience and emotions. In the section about Curves, she concludes,
Every human body has its optimum weight and contour, which only health and efficiency can establish. Whenever we treat women’s bodies as aesthetic objects without function we deform them and their owners. Whether the curves imposed are the ebullient arabesques of the tit-queen or the attenuated coils of the art-nouveau, they are deformations of the dynamic, individual body, and limitations of the possibilities of being female. (p. 36)
The publication of The Female Eunuch brought Greer instant worldwide recognition, as well as a controversial reputation.
Arguing for the necessity for female liberation from women’s traditional “castrated” state as passive beings, Greer posits, “The way is unknown, just as the sex of the uncastrated female is unknown” (p. 20). Greer likens women after the first wave of feminism to birds trapped in cages, and too resigned to their roles to fly out: “The cage door has been opened but the canary had refused to fly out. The conclusion was that the cage door ought never to have been opened because canaries are made for captivity; the suggestion of an alternative had only confused and saddened them” (p. 12). This is a reference to King Lear, which was fitting for Greer, as she was trained as a Shakespearean scholar. Later, she continues in this vein: “It is impossible to argue a case for female liberation if there is no certainty about the degree of inferiority or natural dependence which is unalterably female” (p. 14).
She consciously wrote the book to be subversive:
This book represents only another contribution to a continuing dialogue between the wondering woman and the world. No questions have been answered but perhaps some have been asked in a more proper way than heretofore. If it is not ridiculed or reviled, it will have failed of its intention. If the most successful feminine parasites do not find it offensive, than it is innocuous. What they can tolerate is intolerable to a woman with any pride.
Greer was born in 1939, in Australia. She studied at the University of Melbourne, the University of Sydney and Newnham College at Cambridge. In the 60s and early 70s she taught English in Australia and England, and then became famous with The Female Eunuch in 1970. The response she received kept her busy with promotional tours for most of that year. Later, she worked as a columnist for the London Sunday Times, and was a lecturer and professor at various colleges, including: University of Tulsa – where she also helped establish the Tulsa Centre for Women’s Literature – Newnham College, and University of Warwick. In 1988 she founded and funded Stump Cross Books, which is dedicated to publishing of books of “forgotten” women poets of the 17th and 18th centuries.
In addition to The Female Eunuch, Greer published a dozen books,
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