The Female Eunuch

“The implication that there is a statistically ideal fuck which will always result in satisfaction if the right procedures are followed is depressing and misleading. There is no substitute for excitement: not all the massage in the world will ensure satisfaction, for it is a matter of psycho-sexual release. Real gratification is not enshrined in a tiny cluster of nerves but in the sexual involvement of the whole person.”

By advocating against establishing a prescriptive method by which orgasm is reached during sex, Greer advocates for sexual situations that allow everyone involved to be synthesized as an autonomous person. This idea illustrates an important aspect of the reclamation of the female body: To normalize clitoral orgasm benefits women’s sexual expression, but to focus solely on the clitoris as the means for reaching orgasm does not offer freedom; instead, women become regulated by their ability to reach orgasm via clitoral stimulation.

“Women still buy sanitary towels with enormous discretion, and carry their handbags to the loo when they only need to carry a napkin. They still recoil at the idea of intercourse during menstruation, and feel that the blood they shed is of a special kind […]. If you think you are emancipated, you might consider the idea of tasting your menstrual blood—if it makes you sick, you’ve a long way to go, baby.”

This quote illustrates Greer’s radical views with her suggestion of tasting one’s own menstrual blood. Her recommendation might shock readers, but it also subverts expectations about acceptable behavior. She is not necessarily advocating for the consumption of menstrual blood, but rather she is encouraging women to push back against imposed social norms as she directly addresses readers through the second-person pronoun “you” in the final phrases.

“The stereotype is the Eternal Feminine. She is the Sexual Object sought by all men, and by all women. She is of neither sex, for she has herself no sex at all. Her value is solely attested by the demand she excites in others. All she must contribute is her existence. She need achieve nothing, for she is the reward of achievement. She need never give positive evidence of her moral character because virtue is assumed from her loveliness, and her passivity.”

This is an important explanation of what Greer means when she calls women eunuchs, as these are women who fulfill the stereotypical role ascribed to them. The intrinsic qualities of the female stereotype (objectification, inability to access sexuality, passivity, and beauty) render a woman sub-human because she must relinquish autonomy to embody them. Men desire women who fulfill the stereotype because they do not threaten his position and instead bolster his authority over her.

“It is a male chauvinist position to suppose that any creature that bleeds from the site of its torn-off sexual organ ought by rights to be a maniac.”

This quote engages in Freudian notions of penis envy and castration anxiety by using the term “torn-off sexual organ” to refer to the vagina and uterus. Greer’s phrasing is ironic: She is intentionally ambiguous with the phrase “any creature” (thereby including men) because any “torn-off sexual organ” would naturally bleed. This point subverts concepts that frame menstruating women as “maniac[s]” by calling into question why the process of shedding blood is necessarily linked to irrationality.

“If we are to achieve a stable relationship between the forces of creation and destruction, we will have to abandon the polarity. We cannot survive in the environment of male sadism and female masochism, a universe of aggressors and victims.”

A primary reason for the abolition of the false dichotomy between the sexes is that the relationship is unsustainable and destructive by nature. If men hate women (male sadism) and women internalize this hatred (female masochism), the relationship between men and women is forced into a dichotomy of “aggressors and victims.” This false polarity hurts both sides because not all men are “aggressors,” and women are unable to shed their label as “victim.”

“Men in our culture crippled themselves by setting up an impossible standard of integrity: women were not given the chance to fool themselves in this way. Women have been charged with deviousness and duplicity since the dawn of civilization so they have never been able to pretend that their masks are anything but masks.”

In a system that demonizes women by default, women do not have the opportunity to fully deny their status as inferior. Men, however, can feign integrity in a system that prefers their sex because they hold the position of authority. The “masks” refer to the natural tendency to hide (part of) the authentic self from society to fit in, and while men are afforded the luxury of not acknowledging this self-alteration, women are aware that they must change themselves to fit into social norms.

“The ancillary aspect of women’s work is almost universal; in the home she must make her husband’s lot easier and build up his confidence as breadwinner, and this is an aspect of the secondariness of female work outside the home which has not been evaluated. It is assumed that wives earn less than their husbands, and pity is evinced for men whose wives are more successful than they are.”

In this quote Greer highlights the servile nature of women’s work because women’s work always relates to serving men. Whether this service to men is in the form of physical favors or boosting the male ego, views of women’s work assume that not only is a woman’s work lesser than that of a man’s, but her work ought to serve his goals, not her own. Women whose work is valued more highly than their partners’ work negatively violate these expectations.

“Girls are seldom brilliant, and men sneak the top honours in the depressing majority of cases, while a girl who wants to enjoy equal opportunity with men in professional matters must not equal them but positively outstrip them because of the initial prejudice against her.”

This quote illustrates that for society to acknowledge girls and women as equal to men, women must “positively outstrip” their male counterparts. Those who are socially marginalized (women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, etc.) must transcend the label(s) that marginalize them to achieve equal status to the group occupying the superior social position. In transcending gender, however, a woman loses part of her identity because she cannot express this part of herself.

“Male bonding can be explained by this simple principle of harmony between similes inter pares, that is, love. On the other hand, female castration results in concentration of her feelings upon her male companion, and her impotence in confrontations with her own kind. Because all her love is guided by the search for security, if not for her offspring then for her crippled and fearful self, she cannot expect to find it in her own kind, whom she knows to be weak and unsuitable.”

Men’s relationships with other men are “similes inter pares,” a Latin phrase meaning “similar among peers,” which indicates that men can form relationships with other men without the presumption of sexuality. This is in opposition to women’s relationships with other women because there is a sense of fear and inferiority instilled in women about their own gender. Women see other women as society sees them—as weak, ineffectual, and untrustworthy—a view that reifies discriminatory practices and establishes women as over-reliant on men.

“Love is also the drug which makes sexuality palatable in popular mythology. Sex without love is considered a crude animal evacuation: with love it becomes ecstatic and transcendental.”

Part of the path toward sexual liberation is the decoupling of the notions of sex and love. Sex is presented as something that can either be true and loving or crude and animalistic, with little consideration for other components of sexual relationships. Rejecting this false dichotomy of good and bad sex allows for more variation in sexual expression.

“The final clinch of male romanticism is that each man kills the thing he loves; whether she be Catherine in A Farewell to Arms, or the Grecian Urn, the ‘tension that she be perfect’ means that she must die, leaving the hero’s status as a great lover unchallenged. The pattern is still commonplace: the hero cannot marry. The sexual exploit must be conquest, not cohabitation and mutual tolerance.”

In her discussion about men’s romance literature, Greer argues that representations of women in this type of work reflect the collective beliefs that society holds about women. The expendability of women in male romanticism is analogous with the woman-as-object as she exists in the real world. A “perfect” woman cannot rival her romantic partner in a society that does not value her as an autonomous individual because she has no agency with which to accomplish rivalry.

“Most women who have followed in the direction indicated by the myth [of marriage] make an act of faith that despite day-to-day difficulties they are happy, and keep on asserting it in the face of blatant contradiction by the facts, because to confess disappointment is to admit failure and abandon the effort. It never occurs to them to seek the cause of their unhappiness in the myth itself.”

This quote refers to “the myth” of the middle-class conceptualization of marriage as the end goal for women. Greer argues that women who believe in this mythological form of marriage will always be unhappy because their reality is inconsistent with the myth. Women struggle to admit this unhappiness because a failed marriage indicates that a woman has failed to attain the ascribed end goal of her life. These women do not identify “the myth” as the cause of their unhappiness because to question the validity of marriage would be to question their very reality.

“If women could regard childbearing not as a duty or an inescapable destiny but as a privilege to be worked for, the way a man might work for the right to have a family, children might grow up without the burden of gratitude for the gift of life which they never asked for. […] In a situation where a woman might contribute a child to a household which engages her attention for part of the time while leaving her free to frequent other spheres of influence, brilliant women might be more inclined to reproduce.”

Greer questions traditional motherhood and argues that childbearing is another method of control exercised on women because they do not have the choice to enter motherhood willingly. Her suggestion that social norms should allow motherhood to be “a privilege to be worked for” highlights the disparity between expectations about motherhood versus fatherhood. This system negatively affects children, who often become aware that their mothers harbor resentment toward them because they did not choose to have children but rather were forced to.

“Moreover, it is assumed that women especially need to feel secure, reassured of love and buttressed by the comforts of home. Women who refuse to marry are seen to be daring insecurity, facing a desolate old age, courting poverty and degradation. But husbands die, pensions are inadequate, children grow up and go away and mothers become mothers-in-law. Women’s work, married or unmarried, is menial and low-paid. Women’s right to possess property is curtailed, more if they are married. How can marriage provide security?”

This quote presents security as a false construct by using marriage as an example: The ways in which marriage protects women are not secure because they can never be guaranteed. If sexist society continues to treat women as objects, marriage offers only the illusion of security and acts as a socially sanctioned means to reinforce women’s insecurities. Consumerist society markets marriage to women as a solution, even though marriage can never solve such issues as poverty or loneliness.

“It is a vain delusion that rape is the expression of uncontrollable desire or some kind of compulsive response to overwhelming attraction. Any girl who has been bashed and raped can tell how ludicrous it is when she pleads for a reason and her assailant replies ‘Because I love you’ or ‘Because you’re so beautiful’ or some such rubbish. The act is one of murderous aggression, spawned in self-loathing and enacted upon the hated other.”

This is a statement against victim blaming in situations of sexual violence, and it denounces ideas that rape is anything but an unjustifiable criminal act. The myth that rape occurs because of the way the victim dresses or acts is an incredibly harmful idea that persists today. As a component in sexual liberation, the denouncing of semi-sanctioned actions such as rape is essential because these actions bar a woman from fully accessing her autonomy. This quote engages with Greer’s rejection of the dichotomization of the sexes, and she identifies rape as the product of this type of polarizing social construct.

“Cunt-hatred has survived in our civilization in myriad small manifestations, most of which would be steadily denied by the manifesters. [...] Women of considerable experience, like the authoress of Groupie, who delight and glory in their skill at fellatio feel, in Miss Fabian’s words, that cunnilingus must be less groovy and would not require it of any man who was making love to them. Other women are embarrassed by cunnilingus, and feel sure that men must find it disgusting.”

The phrase “cunt-hatred” works in several ways: It reclaims the word “cunt” to refer to the female sex organs; it shocks readers through use of profanity; and it is a concise label for the complex hatred enacted on the female body. The disparity between expectations of women fellating men and men performing cunnilingus on women illustrates how women internalize “cunt-hatred” and devalue their bodies and selves. The reference to the book “Groupie” by Jenny Fabian and Johnny Byrne (published in 1969) illustrates that women cannot be liberated if they continue to impose double standards upon themselves during sex.

“Pretty women are never unaware that they are aging, even if the process has hardly begun […], but even for women who never made any claims on male admiration there are abusive stereotypes which take over her claim to individuality. The studious, plain girl is characterized as a characterless, sexless swot: the housewife is depicted by a head full of curlers and nothing else, aproned, fussing, nagging, unreliable in the kitchen, with the budget, in her choice of clothes and with the family car.”

Because women are infantilized and objectified, aging is equated with a decline in their value, and women are usually aware of this. This quote extrapolates on the manifestations that the female stereotype can take and how this is abuse of women. It matters not which stereotype a woman has become (the decayed beauty, the sexless academic, or the angry housewife), but rather that women cannot choose these labels themselves. All female stereotypes abuse women by denying them access to individuality and forcing them into predesignated groupings.

“The diaphragm is a nuisance, is perceptible to the woman, and the spermicides interfere with her secretions and the tactile sensations of the surrounding membrane. […] As long as women have to think about contraception every day, and worry about pills, sheaths, and devices of all kinds, and then worry every time a period is due, more irrationality will appear in their behaviour.”

Greer’s discussion of birth control in this section illustrates that women bear a disproportionate amount of responsibility to practice safe sex to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Such an arrangement takes the pleasure out of sex because it leaves one party to consider the long-term ramifications if contraception fails. “Irrationality” refers to a woman’s relationship to sex, which cannot be positive or rational for women until they share the burden of contraception with their partners and are not objectified.

“The housewife accepts vicarious life as her portion, and imagines that she will be a prop and mainstay to her husband in his noble endeavors, but insidiously her unadmitted jealousy undermines her ability to appreciate what he tells her about his ambitions and his difficulties. She belittles him, half-knowingly disputes his difficult decisions, taunts him with his own fears of failure, until he stops telling her anything.”

Greer’s explanation of why a woman devolves into the “frigid housewife” stereotype offers insight into how the sexual repression and mental conditioning to which girls and women are subjected manifest in acts of rebellion. The psychological games of married couples are expressions of the resentment that naturally builds in a relationship where both members feel stifled by social expectations. If women and men both feel forced into the nuclear family, they are both limited in their self-expression and will bear the resentment associated with being unfulfilled.

“She sees that increasing industrialization does not therefore guarantee women a place in productive work because it was not incapability of muscular effort that kept her out of it, but rather the development of private property and private ownership of the means of production, and the relegation of women to the status of supermenials enacting vicarious leisure.”

This quote illustrates Greer’s Marxist values and opposes capitalist structures that limit women via privatization. Women’s presumed inferior strength is a scapegoat in discussions about why women should not be allowed or encouraged to perform certain types of work (especially those jobs that are physically demanding); however, industrialization reveals that this argument is false as physical labor demands are transferred to machines. Capitalist structures are based on patriarchal ideology, which excludes women from ownership of property and goods and from entering the privatized labor force.

“The man who is expected to have a rigid penis at all times is not any freer than the woman whose vagina is supposed to explode with the first thrust of such a penis. Men are as brainwashed as women into supposing that their sexual organs are capable of anatomical impossibilities.”

This is an example of how sexism hurts both men and women because unrealistic expectations about sex are harmful to all parties involved. Part of the implication of a false dichotomy is its polarizing effects, which, in the case of heterosexual relationships, synthesize men as always wanting to have sex and women as being incapable of this desire. It is this concept that leads to the unrealistic expectation that men are always ready to have sex, which is objectively false.

“Reaction is not revolution. It is not a sign of revolution when the oppressed adopt the manners of the oppressors and practise oppression on their own behalf. Neither is it a sign of revolution when women ape men, and men women, or even when laws against homosexuality are relaxed, and the intense sexual connotation of certain kinds of clothes and behaviour are diminished. The attempt to relax the severity of the polarity in law bears no relation to the sway that male-female notions hold in the minds and hearts of real people.”

Greer critiques first-wave feminism and the suffragette approach to equal rights because changing laws is not indicative of changing the structures that uphold sexism. To transpose oppression to another group is not the same as eradicating the presence of discriminatory systems. Legalization and normalization of certain behaviors is insufficient in the liberation of women because legal authority is only one component in the imposition of discriminatory practices.

“The fear of liberty is strong in us, but the fear itself must be understood to be one of the factors inbuilt in the endurance of the status quo. Once women refuse to accept the polarity of masculine-feminine they must accept the existence of risk and possibility of error.”

If a revolution is to take place, there is a rightful place for fear of the unknown, but Greer argues that this comes from a fear of liberty. This type of fear allows for the unchecked proliferation of existing sociopolitical systems. Rejection of any component of a constructed reality, such as the dichotomy between men and women, requires gaining the awareness that other components of reality, like perfection or certainty, might also be false.