Germaine Greer has argued that modern feminism is “ageist” in a panel discussion to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Regarded as a prominent feminist voice of the mid-20th century, the 76-year-old academic criticised what she sees as a focus on young women at the Sydney Opera House event on Sunday.
“Give me the right to grow up, let me age,” she said, according to the Guardian. “In our society, elder women have no respect.”
Greer went on to accuse Australia’s current Abbott Government of attacking pensioners and stripping people in residential aged care of their civil rights.
“They are incarcerated and they have committed no crime,” she said, adding that women working in the elderly care sector were drastically underpaid and only doing the job “out of mercy”.
Feminist quotes from the icons to inspire you
Feminist quotes from the icons to inspire you
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1/35 Katharine Hepburn
“I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone”
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2/35 Madonna
"Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots cause it's okay to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading cause you think being a girl is degrading"
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3/35 Kurt Cobain
“Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth and it happens every few minutes. The problem with groups who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves. What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape. Go to the source and start there”
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4/35 Betty Friedan
“No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor”
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5/35 Maya Angelou
“I want to be representative of my race - the human race. I have a chance to show how kind we can be, how intelligent and generous we can be…”
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6/35 Emma Watson
"I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men."
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7/35 Emmeline Pankhurst
“I want to say to you who think women cannot succeed, we have brought the government of England to this position, that it has to face this alternative: either women are to be killed or women are to have the vote”
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8/35 Patricia Arquette
"To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights, it’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America."
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9/35 Nawal El Saadawi
“They said, “You are a savage and dangerous woman. I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous”
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10/35 Margaret Fuller
"It is a vulgar error that love, a love, to woman is her whole existence; she is born for Truth and Love in their universal energy"
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11/35 Germaine Greer
“All societies on the verge of death are masculine. A society can survive with only one man; no society will survive a shortage of women”
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12/35 Naomi Wolf
“A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience”
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13/35 Rebecca West
"I myself have never able to find out precisely what a feminist is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat"
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14/35 Aung San Suu Kyi
“In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued"
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15/35 Margaret Atwood
“Does feminist mean large unpleasant person who'll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings. To me it's the latter, so I sign up”
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16/35 Julie Burchill
"A good part - and definitely the most fun part - of being a feminist is about frightening men"
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17/35 Scarlett Johansson
"Why do [male co-stars] get the really interesting, existential questions and I get the, like, rabbit food question?"
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18/35 Susan B. Anthony
"I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand"
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19/35 Margaret Sanger
"No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother"
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20/35 Sylvia Plath
"Apparently, the most difficult feat for a Cambridge male is to accept a woman not merely as feeling, not merely as thinking, but as managing a complex, vital interweaving of both"
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21/35 Hillary Clinton
"I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life"
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22/35 Lena Dunham
"The idea of being a feminist—so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male and not able to connect with the opposite sex—but what feminism is about is equality and human rights. For me that is just an essential part of my identity. I hope [Girls] contributes to a continuance of feminist dialogue"
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23/35 Bette Davis
“When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch”
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24/35 John Legend
“All men should be feminists. If men cared about women’s rights, the world would be a better place”
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25/35 Mae West
“Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can't figure out what from”
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26/35 Jane Austen
“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives”
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27/35 Gloria Steinem
“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”
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28/35 Sheng Wang
“Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding”
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29/35 Anais Nin
“I hate men who are afraid of women's strength”
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30/35 Barack Obama
“We stand with women by fighting for economic security, protecting access to health care and supporting women’s leadership across the country”
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31/35 Elizabeth Warren
“I have a daughter and I have granddaughters and I will never vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women’s access to birth control. We have lived in that world, and we are not going back, not ever”
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32/35 Malala Yousafzai
“In Pakistan, when we were stopped from going to school, at that time I realized that education … Is the power for women, and that’s why the terrorists are afraid of education”
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33/35 Janis Joplin
"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got"
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34/35 Lupita Nyong’o
"I hope that my presence on your screens and in magazines may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty."
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35/35 Virginia Woolf
"As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world"
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Greer emphasised that there was “heaps” more pressure on women to conform to society’s physical and behavioural standards today than when she wrote The Female Eunuch in 1970, and shamed Kim Kardashian as being of “no help” in changing attitudes.
Greer also voiced her concern over gender equality being such a major goal in modern feminism. “Everyone thinks they understand [equality] but no one understands it…it’s an illusory goal,” she said, drawing on the pay gap that remains alive and kicking.
“I’m a liberation feminist, not an equality feminist. Equality is a profoundly conservative aim and it won’t achieve anything.”
No doubt actress Emma Watson, UN Goodwill Ambassador for Women, will have her own view on Greer’s comments when she hosts a live Q&A on her He For She campaign in London later this afternoon.
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