Thursday, February 03, 2011

Greer versus GBS

Ten days ago Germaine Greer had a go at the reputation of George Bernard Shaw in the Guardian; yesterday the post graduate student who set her going by sending her his paper on GBS.  Then last night there was a bit of chatter in the paper's "Comment is Free" site.  This was my contribution:

Let's have a think about some of the right-on things Germaine has forced on us over the years. Well, before "The Female Eunuch" there was the full-frontal picture she posed for in "Oz"; as I remember, quite titillating but not particularly feminist. Then there was her Latin Lover period, when she urged women to take a Latin Lover because they could keep on having sex for ages and made it a matter of pride not to ejaculate inside a woman - or even at all, as I recall her account of her very own Latin Lover. There were the aforementioned pops at Tom Paine for abandoning his Wife (er . . . no!) and at poor old repressed A E Housman who managed to write some pretty little things in his day but did have the audacity to offend Greer by fancying "lads" rather than lasses and inspiring - apparently - the whole greetings card industry. She also suggested that a degree of moral and cultural relativism is OK when thinking about Female Genital Mutilation, seeming to make the assumption that it was wrong for us to judge the traditional acts of another culture. This was denied, but her words upset a House of Commons Select Committee at the time. And that Shakespeare! He was a bit of a bludger, wasn't he? After "The Female Eunuch" she co-hosted a sort of Comdey show for TV with Kenny Everett. And a few years back she appeared as a participant in the "Big Brother" house. So that's her extra-academic career. She's a bit of an old windbag really. Funny how you never see her and Clive James together in the same room.

Anyway, the poor old girl wrote one goodish book back in 1970, since when she's flailed around. I like GBS. I think he'll outlast her.

5 comments:

Andrew said...

Germaine Green will never be forgotten as long as there are people who remember her and that book about the eunuchs.

John McCartney said...

Shome mishtake shurely?

Andrew said...

Sorry, I meant of course "German Greenery will never be forgotten as long as there are people who remember her and that book about the eunuchs."

John McCartney said...

I feel a chorus of "Christmas day In The Harem" coming on . . .

Anonymous said...

Clive James remembered her outbursts about 'freckle punchers" from the time they were at university together. He had the good grace not to say "Germaine Greer said.." but the inference is screamingly obvious. He also seems to have had a Betjeman/Auden moment with her too, but it's not clear which one er, liked steam trains, as it were.