Germaine Greer

She is also the author of many other books including Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984); The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991); Shakespeare's Wife (2007); and The Whole Woman (1999). She is Professor Emerita of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick.

Greer has defined her goal as "women's liberation" as distinct from "equality with men". She asserts that women's liberation meant embracing gender differences in a positive fashion—a struggle for the freedom of women to define their own values, order their own priorities and determine their own fates. In contrast, Greer sees equality as mere assimilation and "settling" to live the lives of "unfree men". Read Less

In 1991, The Change: Women, Ageing, and the Menopause, which the New York Times called a "brilliant, gutsy, exhilarating, exasperating fury of a book" became another influential book in the women's movement. In it, Greer wrote of the various myths concerning menopause, advising against the use of hormone replacement therapy. "Frightening females is fun," she wrote in The Age. "Women were frightened into using hormone replacement therapy by dire predictions of crumbling bones, heart disease, loss of libido, depression, despair, disease and death if they let nature take its course." She argues that scaring women is "big business and hugely profitable." It is fear, she wrote, that "makes women comply with schemes and policies that work against their interest".

Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet followed in 1995. This is a selective account of women who wrote poetry in English before 1900; and an examination of why so few female poets have been admitted to the literary canon. Her conclusion is that women were held to different and lower standards than men (hence the "slipshod" sibyls of the title, quoting Alexander Pope) and the poetic tradition discouraged good poetry from women. The book includes a critique of the concept of the woman as Muse, associated with Robert Graves and others,; a chapter on the reputation of Sappho and her use as a symbol of female poetry, a chapter on the 17th-century poet Katherine Philips, two chapters on Aphra Behn and one on Anne Wharton, both also of the 17th century; the 17th- and 18th-century poet Anne Finch; and the 19th century poets Letitia Landon and Christina Rossetti. Read Less

The photo was part of an exhibition at the UK's National Portrait Gallery in 2000. It later appeared in a book entitled Polly Borland: Australians. Greer has made frequent appearances on the BBC's satirical television panel show Have I Got News for You, including one in the programme's very first series in 1990. Read Less