Germaine Greer was born in Melbourne (Australia) in 1939, the eldest child of two unhappy adults. Reg Greer, a minor playboy who worked on the fringes of advertising and claimed to be South African (he was actually born in Tasmania) had married a young, innocent woman named Peggy Lafrank.
Following a convent education, Germaine became a scholar of English literature, which she studied at university in Melbourne, Sydney and Cambridge.
She left Australia at the age of 23 and in 1968 she became a lecturer in English at the University of Warwick. While there, she wrote The Female Eunuch, a feminist study of male cultural domination. The book had a profound international impact when it was published in 1970.
Her other works include The Obstacle Race (a study of women artists through history), The Madwoman’s Underclothes (a collection of essays), Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984), The Change: Women, Ageing, and the Menopause (1991), Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet (1995) and The Whole Woman (1999).
Related Posts
Richardsons, The Charlie Richardson was born in Camberwell, south-east London in 1934. His brother Eddie was born in 1936, the youngest sibling…
Fred Dagg Fred Dagg was actually New Zealand-born comedian and political satirist John Clarke, who appeared as Dagg on television always wearing…
Neville Bonner Neville Thomas Bonner was the first Aborigine to be elected to Australia's federal parliament. He lived in poverty in the…
Twiggy Twiggy's success story began in 1965 when Nigel Davies – a jack-of-all-trades who had worked as a bookie's office boy,…
Ted Bundy American serial killer Theodore Robert Bundy was born on 24 November 1946 at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers…
Junie Morosi In Australia in the 1970s, Shanghai-born Junie Morosi became the first woman to take the position of Principal Private Secretary…
Baader-Meinhof (Red Army Faction) "Baader-Meinhof" became the popular name for the West German left-wing guerrilla group the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction), who were active…
Harold Holt Harold Edward Holt was born in Sydney in 1908 and educated at Melbourne University. He worked as a solicitor and…
