‘Steve is twice the Aussie icon you will ever be’: Germaine Greer, the Crocodile Hunter’s death, and nationalistic misogyny (original) (raw)
Related papers
If she's so great, how come so many pigs dig her? germaine greer and the malestream press
Women's History Review, 1993
The quotation in the title has been attributed as Robyn Morgans response to Germaine Greers television debate with Norman Mailer. This paper will explore Germaine Greers turbulent relationship with the mainstream press both in Australia and abroad and will attempt to determine whether the flamboyant Dr Greer added a much needed patina of glamour to the movement or merely used feminism as yet another way to cash in on the counter-culture. It demonstrates the ability of the media to manipulate a feminism not grounded in an analysis of male power. Addressing the National Press Club in Washington in 1971, Germaine Greer described herself as a media freak. It was a most apt description. While in America, Greer had received more press coverage than any other feminist. During her Australian tour five years later, the media, which had only given cursory and scurrilous coverage to the movement, began to devote hundreds of column inches to the womens movement. So much so that one journalist claimed that there had been a discernible change in attitude within a few weeks of Greers stay.[1] It had been the same in England.[2] Greer was unquestionably the media star of second-wave feminism. She was launched on a coast-to-coast American tour by her publishers, McGraw-Hill, in the spring of 1971 and the mass media were quick to capitalise on her ready wit and unconventional behaviour. She became the toast of the talk shows. A book launching at which she spoke in New York had to be rescheduled in order to accommodate all the members of the press who wanted to attend.[3] She was named Woman of the Year in Great Britain in 1971 and Playboy Journalist of the Year in the USA in 1972. Greer was dubbed the high priestess of womens liberation. She GERMAINE GREER AND THE MALESTREAM PRESS
‘Germaine Greer’s Adaptable Celebrity: Feminism, Unruliness, and Humour on the British Small Screen’
Feminist Media Studies, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2013.810165
There is little doubt that Germaine Greer is the West's, and especially Britain's, most well-known feminist. This article, looking at her more recent public appearances, argues that Germaine Greer has proven adept at adapting her feminist celebrity, especially through various (and often comedic) performances on quiz and lifestyle programmes on British television. In particular, she exemplifies what has been called an "unruly woman"; that is, she is a transgressive figure who uses the space provided by these new entertainment formats not simply to reinforce her celebrity but to circulate (and perform) a particular feminism. Her celebrity, and her relationship to the mainstream media in Britain especially, has shifted and evolved over time and therefore provides an important case study into the complicated operations of celebrity as well as the feminism-media nexus itself. As an instance of gendered celebrity-and that of a feminist especially-that comes to at once trouble and buttress certain celebrity logics, Greer illuminates the political importance of this ground for feminism and helps to underscore that feminist celebrity is a distinct, and developing, mode of public subjectivity which celebrity studies and feminist media studies have thus far failed to significantly address.
Feminist Ecologies in Australia (Nov 2014)
Keynote speakers: Professor Germaine Greer, 'Mother? Nature?' Professor Alison Bartlett, 'Thinking–Feminism–Place: Situating the 1980s Australian Women’s Peace Camps' Associate Professor Linda Williams, 'Jocasta’s legacy and Ecocritique in Australia'
Australian Feminist Studies Resurrecting Germaine's theory of cuntpower
In the early years of the second wave, two very different approaches to female sexuality and feminist politics were in circulation, Anne Koedt's 'The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm' and Germaine Greer's theory of cuntpower. While the clitoral orgasm became the 'feminist orgasm' during these years, Greer's more open and genitally inclusive theory of cuntpower encouraged women to explore the variations of their own heterosexuality in the name of women's and sexual liberation. This article will argue that Greer's ideas about cuntpower are worth resurrecting and integrating into our understanding of second wave feminist sexual politics. It will also argue that Greer's utilisation of the media allowed her ideas to influence ordinary women's understanding of the potential of their sexuality, their right to orgasm and its connection to women's liberation.
‘The double delegitimisation of Julia Gillard: Gender, the media and Australian political culture’
This article explores Australian media coverage of Julia Gillard's leadership. It employs a comparative discourse analysis of the gendered nature of media reporting on her sexism and misogyny speech and eventual demise. The article places these gendered framings within two contexts: that of the more general gendered expectations of the double bind facing all women leaders; and the more specific challenge to Australia's women leaders, posed by exclusivist national identity narratives. These narratives – of mateship, the ANZAC myth, and various apparently ideal-type masculinities – serve to further disassociate Australian women from positions of national leadership. Together, we argue that the twin constraints of gender expectations and exclusivist national identity narratives amounted to a double delegitimisation of Julia Gillard's leadership, on the basis of her being a woman leader, generally, and an Australian woman leader, specifically.
Indigenous Australian Women: Towards a Womanist Perspective
2021
This article discusses the historical presentation of Indigenous Australian women as depicted through the 1980 paradigms of Euro-Australian feminist and anthropologist Dianne Belle. While Belle's paradigms, Man Equals Culture; An Anthropology of Women; and Towards a Feminist Perspective, provide a comprehensive history of written accounts of the lives of Indigenous Australian women, such accounts are always written by someone else; an onlooker or outsider. The accounts are mainly written by white anthropologists, both male and female, and are based on a white perception. In this article, I argue for the establishment of a fourth paradigm: Towards a Womanist Perspective; one which focuses on the life writings of Indigenous Australian women themselves. I support my argument through an indepth study of both Alice Nannup's When the Pelican Laughed (1992) and Rita and Jackie Huggins' Aunty Rita (1994). I discuss both autobiographies in the light of womanism, a concept separate to that of mainstream feminism. While feminism is necessary, it can unintentionally overlook the needs of some women, in particular, the needs of Indigenous women. In her book, Talkin' Up to the White Woman (2000), Aboriginal academic Aileen Moreton-Robinson states that unlike white women, Indigenous women have to deal with two patriarchies: that within their own societies and that of the overarching colonial power. I discuss this double patriarchy in the light of Alice Nannup's and Rita and Jackie Huggins' life writings and argue for a womanist-based approach to future academic study.
McGrath, A. “The Loneliness of the Feminist Historian”. Australian Feminist Studies 29, no. 80 (2014): 204-214. Feminist historians in Australia have achieved the critical mass that means that they no longer need to be the sole woman’s voice pleading to get women into the history corridors and inside the books. By looking back at recent history reflexively, this article celebrates the achievement of feminist historians over the past four decades in making profound impacts on mainstream historical writing and understanding. Engaging in particular with the work of feminist historians Joan Scott and Joy Damousi, ‘The Loneliness of the Feminist Historian’ considers whether feminist history has a future. It also reflects upon the author’s memories of the feminist history movement from the 1970s and 1980s—its aims, its achievements and its significant successes, especially compared with other social science disciplines. It explains how certain ‘great (female) historians’ made courageous efforts to internationalise and pluralise feminist history. It also probes the meaning and relevance of ‘professional masculinities’, pointing out that feminist historians were supported by key male historians, who backed them in gaining career and publishing opportunities. Additionally, the challenges of Indigenous scholars led to a sharpening of critical approaches to colonialism. This article argues, however, that feminist historians cannot afford to cling to the excitement of the early conferences of the 1970s and 1980s, for if they expect their practice to thrive, they must constantly critique it, using the most innovative and best tools of our era, including the empirical, the reflexive, the whimsical and the theoretical.
Is Germaine Greer a Man? The Politics and Ethics of Queer Feminism
2002
Do contemporary feminisms rely on a notion of essential identity? How can contemporary feminisms counter criticisms that they are based on notions of essence? What would feminisms be like if they did not rely on such notions of identity? In short, is a politics of difference compatible with contemporary feminisms?
Julia Gillard: A murderous rage
This chapter charts the political career of Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister (2010-2013), and argues that three intertwined discourses of gender have shaped the way she was perceived and represented in the political domain and in the media. First, Gillard was faced with the double bind, by which female leaders are expected to demonstrate qualities stereotypically associated with both masculinity and femininity. Second, by prioritising a career over marriage and family, she was positioned as an unintelligible being. Third, in acts of strategic essentialism, Gillard named and condemned the sexism she had endured, thereby repositioning herself as a coherent political force. Gillard’s powerful use of language marked the re-emergence of feminism in the Australian cultural and political landscape.
" Getting Gillard and Hating Hillary: Analysing the Discourses of Disrespect and Direction "
From June 2010 until June 24 th 2013 the then Prime Minister of Australia Ms Julia Gillard was subjected to the most intense and ruthless political rhetoric ever seen in Australian media. Personal attacks and talk back callers openly admitting they " hated her " and calling into question her mental state and hormonal status was just part of a brutal media campaign aided and abetted by a fierce Opposition Leader in Tony Abbott. He derailed a reforming and intelligent woman who held together a minority parliament which delivered significant legislation. In addition a selection of media articles and a review of media analysis of the candidacy of Hillary Clinton in preparing a run for the White House in the USA during the years 2015-2016 echoes eerie parallels to a sub textual cultural discourse of misogyny especially in politics. This discourse analysis and media study questions whether the core of the Real Matilda misogyny reported by Miriam Dixson in Australia since 1976 is alive and well and lingers on in our linguistic heritage and elsewhere in the western world. The polarisation of political debate and the concomitant bias shown in some media quarters is analysed and shown to have a significant pattern beginning with disapproval and ending in directional linguistic commands from media. The end result was that the Politicians listened to the unrelenting chorus of demands to " end leadership speculation " and to go to an election.