Who would have thought that I actually agree with something Greer has said!
Germaine Greer
Daily Mail: Controversial feminist Germaine Greer claims Bruce Jenner had a sex-change to become Caitlyn so he could enjoy the same limelight as his Kardashian daughters. The Australian commentator hit out at the reality star former Olympian after she was rumoured to be in the frame to be crowned Glamour’s Woman of the Year.
Greer accused the magazine of ‘misogyny’ and said a transgender person should never be considered a better woman than someone born female. She then let loose, alleging Jenner only wanted to be a woman so that she could revel in the attention.
Speaking on BBC2’s Newsnight programme, she said: ‘It seems to me that what was going on there was that he/she wanted the limelight that the other, female, members of the family were enjoying and has conquered it, just like that.’
Referring to the Woman of the Year award, she then added: ‘I think misogyny plays a really big part in all of this, that a man who goes to these lengths to become a woman will be a better woman than someone who is just born a woman.’
Greer, author of The Female Eunuch, a classic on women’s sexuality, has sparked similar controversies in the past with comments regarding transsexuals. She previously said that women who were born as men before undergoing surgery are ‘not women’, saying they do not ‘look like, sound like or behave like women’.
Greer commented: ‘I’m not saying that people should not be allowed to go through that [sex change] procedure. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t make them a woman. It happens to be an opinion. It’s not a prohibition.’
Feminist Rachael Melhuish
Meanwhile, students at Cardiff University have launched an online petition to prevent the feminist icon giving a speech at a Women & Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century lecture next month. The petition, which was started on Change.org by Rachael Melhuish, women’s officer at Cardiff University students’ union, alleged Greer has ‘demonstrated misogynistic views towards trans women, including continually misgendering trans women and denying the existence of transphobia altogether’.
It’s a feminist catfight!
It adds: ‘[H]osting a speaker with such problematic and hateful views towards marginalised and vulnerable groups is dangerous. Allowing Greer a platform endorses her views, and by extension, the transmisogyny, which she continues to perpetuate.’ More than 800 people have already added their signatures.
DCG