- Free our sisters!
- Free ourselves!
- What do we want?
- Equal pay!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
If I'm writing something,
the anxiety is to get it right
and so there the question you
ask yourself is not, “Is this a success?”
but, “Did I get it right?”
For me, success is when people
engage with the topic.
They don't have to take my line on it,
but if they'll just give me
a hearing then that's cool.
[Hugh Minson] Two mates are on a mission
to figure out how 10 Aussie icons
in completely different fields
broke away from the pack.
We want to dig deeper, see if anyone
can do what they’ve done
and figure out their common thread.
Professor Germaine Greer is one
of the twentieth century’s
most influential feminists.
The controversial writer and academic
overturned a lot of the world’s
thinking on feminism when, in 1970,
she published her international best-seller,
The Female Eunuch.
Since then, she’s published other books,
co-presented TV series,
written for newspapers,
and lectured at Cambridge University.
She’s continually challenged the status quo
through her flamboyant writing
and intellectually-charged
media appearances.
Few Australians have polarised
and provoked public opinion as much.
After tracking down
the legendary adventurer, Alby Mangels,
we found ourselves back over
the border at Melbourne University
to meet with Germaine.
She had just sold the University the rights
to her lifetime archive for over
a million dollars, which she donated
to Australian rainforest rehabilitation.
The leafy campus was the perfect setting
to unpack the thinkings of
one of the country’s best-known scholars.
[Jack Morphet] Germaine, we've interviewed a judge,
a doctor, sportspeople, business people.
How would we categorise your career?
[Germaine] I'm a writer.
[Jack] And not an academic nor an activist?
[Germaine] I'm not an activist.
I can't bear committees.
I haven't got the patience.
I keep saying what
everyone else is trying not to say.
I don’t get the rules at all.
[Jack] We've read that you had
very little support from
your family at a young age.
Did unsupportive parents hinder you?
No...
... and for all I know I was impossible,
you know?
A sceptical, thoughtful child-
 I mean, I think my father was
probably afraid of me.
My mother, I think, was probably Aspergers.
Somewhere on the spectrum.
Fairly severe, I'd say...
... and so nothing
was going to come from there anyway.
[Hugh] Germaine’s childhood was similar
to Alby’s in that her parents were hands-off
and she was free to pursue her own interests.
A naturally gifted student, she received
academic scholarships from a young age
all the way through to her PhD at Cambridge.
It was here, while studying the arts,
she immersed herself
in the student acting scene.
[Germaine] That was the musical boot,
runner-up in the soul section.
[Audience laughing]
[Hugh] We wondered whether this is where
she first became comfortable
with being the center of the attention.
Given her natural talents as a performer,
we wanted to know what led
her to pursue an academic career.
[Germaine] It was the only way forward I think.
I was just on that little track
that I would earn this scholarship
and then ding, ding, ding,
I'd earn the other one,
then ding, ding, ding and another one,
and then get the academic job,
ding, ding, and then get the PhD, and then and on and on.
Then I started to bore myself, so I left.
[Hugh] And you felt like there weren't other options?
[Germaine] No, I did feel there were
no other options for a girl, in particular.
[Hugh] It’s important to think about
the era Germaine grew up in.
Women had only had the right
to vote for a few decades.
They couldn’t take out home loans
without the approval of their husbands
or take seats at the boardroom table.
It was only from 1963 that women
had the right to drink in public bars.
And so, 30-year-old Germaine,
fed up with the status quo,
published her first book, The Female Eunuch.
Its core thesis being that
the traditional suburban family
represses women sexually, castrating them.
[Germaine] There is an element of hatred
and rejection in men’s relationships to women
which women are unfortunately
unaware of at their peril.
[Hugh] Germaine tackled topics that
had never been discussed before,
weaving in her distinctive humour, boldness
and coarse language.
The book was the first of its kind
and by 1971,
it was an international best-seller,
eventually selling more than 6 million copies.
Germaine became a cult figure,
promoting her book and radical thinking
on any and every stage around the world.
[Germaine] Because I say that just as bullock
doesn’t know what it’s like to be a bull
and doesn’t know what he’s missing,
so women who live in
the normal circumstances in our society,
don’t know what it’s like to be really female,
and really human, and really
in control of all their potential.
[Man] I really don’t know what women are asking for.
Now, suppose I wanted to give it to them.
[Germaine] Listen, you may as well relax
because whatever it is
they’re asking for, honey,
it’s not for you!
- [Man] No... 
[Audience laughing]
[Hugh] To this day, The Female Eunuch
has never been out of print
and remains one of the most important
texts in the feminist movement.
We wanted to hear Germaine’s take on it all.
[Jack] What role has luck played in your career?
[Germaine] Oh, lots, I would think.
In a funny way, I mean,
The Female Eunuch was lucky
because it was written at the right time.
How many publishers would do it again?
You know, they assumed feminism was a fashion
and that it would be over.
There are very few feminists who
have abandoned the faith.
[Hugh] Now, I have a ruler here,
which I'm going to give you
and at this end is the year 1970
and the world that was
and my question to you is,
how far have we moved in
the direction of your feminist ideals?
[Germaine] (Laughs) From here? From the whole --?
- [Hugh] Yes.
[Germaine] Well, maybe, there.
[Hugh] That one centimetre?
- [Germaine] Not even.
[Hugh] On a 30-centimetre ruler, not even one centimetre?
- [Germaine] Well, the thing is that
the equality discourse is nonsense.
It's not desirable, even supposing it was doable
and so people keep scratching
their heads and going, "Oh shit!
Women are getting poorer than ever."
Oh, that's right.
And then, when it comes to the things
that only women do like giving birth,
they're disadvantaged and they get
more disadvantaged all the time.
Whereas we're being told women
have got to be put on the boards
of corporations whether
they want to be there or not.
[Hugh] Germaine certainly got both of us thinking.
We thought perhaps she would feel
society had moved closer towards
her feminist ideals since 1970
but her point is that as long
as we still live in a society where
the majority of the power structures
have been created by men,
there simply can’t be true equality.
This idea has been at
the core of her life’s work;
to raise awareness about
how it isn’t a level playing field
for both men and women.
[Germaine] I have come to the conclusion,
after thinking about it for quite
a long time, that men are seriously weird.
[Show Host] Yes.
[Audience laughing]
Well, I agree with that
as long as you go on to say,
"And women are seriously weird
as well maybe in a different way."
[Germaine] Wait a minute. How can you say that?
If you find --
- [Show Host] It’s my show. [Audience laughing]
I can say what I like.
[Audience continues laughing]
[Germaine] That’s a very good male response but okay.
[Show Host] Now look,
I’m a feminist the same as you.
I come from a long line of women. My mother was -- 
- [Germaine] You are not the same as me.
You are bald. You are not the same as me.
- [Show Host] Hey! Hey! This is sexual harassment.
- [Germaine] And what does it feel like? Tell me about it later.
- [Show Host] I love it.
[Germaine] Women would have a better time
if they were harder of access,
if they were prouder, if they were
more combative,
if they were difficult 
and if it was a challenge to a man
to actually enter into a relationship with them.
And to develop their own true talents as well.
To find out what the talent is
that it is death to hide.
And what it is that you can do
that no-one else can do
and to be sincere and wholehearted in that
just to be truly absorbed
in what you're doing.
[Jack] How do you expect women to
go against the grain of
the patriarchal business community
and society and still get ahead?
[Germaine] Well, the get ahead bit is interesting.
‘Cos there's no race and you don't have to win.
What women are longing for is a life.
What most corporation men
are longing for is a life.
But the corporation doesn't offer a life.
It offers a career.
And what is interesting about
the corporation is it's a story of failure.
Everyone is a loser.
There's only one person at the top.
There's the CEO.
Now when is corporation man
going to wake up to that?
[Hugh] What's your definition of failure?
[Germaine] Supposing we think Julia Gillard...
... did she fail?
Not really.
I mean, she did her best
but she was obstructed at every step
and in the end, she was thrown out
but I don't think she ought
to feel that she’s a failure.
She’s not a failure until she gives up.
I suppose I’d have to say that's it,
it's when you give up that you're a failure.
[Hugh] So what advice would you give
your younger self?
[Germaine] (Laughs)
As I recall my younger self
wasn't too good at taking advice,
so I'd probably hold my tongue.
[Hugh] Germaine is not known for
holding her tongue.
Since The Female Eunuch, 
she’s frequently made her opinions public
and constantly defied people’s expectations.
After comparing Big Brother
to ‘a fascist prison camp’
she then appeared on the show in 2005.
She has taken on British royalty,
calling Princess Kate ‘too thin’
and it was Julia Gillard, after all,
whose appearance
she mocked on national TV.
[Germaine] Every time she turns around,
you’ve got that strange horizontal crease --
[Audience laughing]
 -- which means they’re cut too narrow in the hips.
You’ve got a big arse, Julia, just get on with it.
[Audience laughing and clapping]
[Hugh] She also described Steve Irwin
as a ‘self-deluded animal torturer’
shortly after his death;
Princess Diana as ‘a devious moron’ 10 years after her death;
and once suggested Michelle Obama’s
dress looked like ‘a butcher’s apron.’
Comments like these have made people laugh
and outraged at the same time.
Few of us could withstand
the amount of backlash she’s caused.
But she’s certainly achieved
her goal of getting people to think
and engage in her topics.
[Germaine] I’m going to say some things to you today
 that you may not necessarily agree with.
This doesn’t worry me.
All I want you to do is to think
about what I’m saying.
[Hugh] Have you ever been
the victim of tall poppy syndrome?
It's commonly thought that Australians
don't rejoice in the success of other Australians,
that they snipe and want to say it's because
they slept with a producer or whatever.
I'm sure people have said that
about me but it's...
... it's not something I'm going to think about.
[Jack] What about those people who work hard
without achieving their goals?
[Germaine] Well, my position about work
is DH Lawrence's really.
"There's no point in work unless
it absorbs you like an absorbing game.
If it doesn't absorb you,
if it isn't any fun, don't do it."
Work should be it's own reward.
It should be like playing.
We are naturally busy...
... but most of us
are having our natural busyness
wasted for meaningless drudgery.
[Jack] How independent do you have to be,
to be the best at what it is you do?
[Germaine] I think you have to listen to your own voice.
You have to follow your own conscience
it is really but it is being responsible
for what you say and what you do.
[Hugh] No matter what Germaine says about people
or what people say about her,
she always speaks her mind.
And it was this approach that helped
pour fuel on the women’s liberation
fire in the first place, inspiring women
to believe in themselves and not just
live according to men’s expectations.
Germaine continues doing this
to this day having published
over 15 books on feminism,
literature and the environment.
She splits her time between the UK
and Australia where she lives on a patch
of rainforest in South-East Queensland.
How did you maintain self-belief
when your work was getting criticised
and harshly criticised?
[Germaine] You're nearly always praised
for the wrong reasons
and you'll be blamed for
the wrong reasons as well.
So you’ve just got to hold steady...
... keep to the course, you've no choice
but to follow, really,
otherwise, you will be again buffeted
by every contrary current
and you really can't be that thing.
[Hugh] Germaine has lived life on her own terms.
She’s influenced and inspired people
the world over through her ideas
and independent thinking
with incredible self-belief.
To break away from the pack:
challenge the status quo
and have unwavering courage
in your own convictions.
While Germaine took this to the next level,
we see this common thread with everyone we meet.
You have walked your own path,
so we've just got you
a little pair of hiking poles.
[Germaine] Are they long enough for me?
- [Hugh] Yeah, they’re extendable, of course.
And we hope you may be able
to use those up at Mt. Warning as well.
[Germaine] Goodness!
[Hugh] Well, really Germaine,
thank you very much for your time.
We really appreciate it.
