Does Germaine Greer's new book have anything to say to young women? The second extract of The Whole Woman, published in yesterday's Telegraph, appeared to suggest that bonding between her and those young enough to be her grandchildren was impossible: she says it is 'questionable... that sisterhood binds women of different generations. Sisters, by definition, belong to an age set.' Well, Greer is 60 and I am 28, but on the evidence of these extracts she has a lot to say to me.
For a start, her assertion that we've forgotten about liberation and settled, instead, for the hope of equality feels like a revelation. 'Liberation struggles are not about assimilation, but about asserting difference,' she writes. '...What none of us noticed [in the 70s] was that the ideal of liberation was fading out with the word. We were settling for equality.' The trend in feminism over the past few years - spearheaded by Natasha Walter's New Feminism - has been to say that equal pay, equal opportunities and good childcare are all that matter; relationships, sexuality and appearance are no longer feminist issues. The result of this re-definition of feminism is that many more people can call themselves feminists - you'd have to be a pretty hoary old misogynist to believe that women don't deserve equal pay. And so, the eighties refrain of 'I'm not a feminist, but...' has been replaced with 'I'm a feminist if feminism means equal pay, but...' To be followed with something like '...not if it means I can't shave my legs.' Now, the Women's Liberation spearheaded by the likes of Greer never told anyone that they shouldn't shave their legs. What it did do was say that if you want to shave, you should be aware that political pressures are behind that desire; just as political pressures force women to diet, and have breast implants, and use anti-ageing creams made from placenta, and generally feel hateful towards their physical selves. Greer's new book is an exciting reminder of how discrimination against women stops them, physically, from being 'the whole woman'. 'Your cellulite is you,' she says. It might sound obvious; but what a thrill to talk about owning our bodies, about being who we are.
This is where the equality-seekers get it wrong, and liberationists like Greer get it right. Because how we feel about our bodies has an impact on whether we get paid the same. Of course we'll never get equal status if we're spending all our time and energy worrying about our thighs. Of course we'll never get equal pay if we ask for it wearing a baby-doll slip.
What has equality legislation done for women anyway? The Equal Pay Act came into force 29 years ago and yet a woman still earns 79p for every £1 a man earns doing the same job. Women may be entering the workforce in record numbers, but with little pay and no security. Saying we should concentrate only on equal pay doesn't even get you equal pay.
And what of equal status in Parliament? Less than two years ago, we were thrilled to get so many women into the government - but their silence, and their inability to represent, say, single mothers has been a crashing disappointment. 'The more female politicians a parliament may boast, the less likely it is to address women's issues,' writes Greer - as a woman MP who's had enough with the 'rowdy bear-garden that is the British House of Commons' would attest, if only she had the voice to do so. It's not about joining men's clubs, says Greer, it's about forming our own; it's not about becoming a pliant member of Tony's government, it's about changing the male-structure of Parliament itself.
Some parts of Greer's thesis do feel anachronistic - often linguistically, as in the use of the word 'sisterhood' - and are a reminder that she is of an older generation. This is particularly true of some of her characterisations of marriage. For example: 'To her anxious question "Do you love me?" he has an easy answer. "Of course. I married you, didn't I?" ' This sounds like a line growled by Bill Sykes to Nancy, not something contemporary. But her broader point, that women are encouraged to see marriage as a mark of success, their only really valuable goal, is hugely pertinent for a generation fed Bridget Jones and her desperate longing for a trip up the aisle.
Here's a bottom line. 'When the Female Eunuch was written, our daughters were not cutting or starving themselves,' writes Greer. Today they are. Anorexia and bulimia are epidemics, and 65,000 every year subject themselves to mutilation in the name of cosmetic surgery (95 per cent of cosmetic surgeons are men; 90 per cent of their patients are women). These figures make a mockery of the belief that feminism's job is over.
The extracts from The Whole Woman feel bold. Many older feminists have had enough of Greer - they think she's an individualist, that she's a media player (selling book extracts to the Telegraph!) and that they've heard it all before. But younger feminists might just find something exciting in what Greer has to say. Young women don't have a book like The Female Eunuch to radicalise them, or to put their experiences into a much-needed feminist context. It would be a great pity if young people dismissed Greer as a figure from a previous generation, with not much to say to their own. This work is refreshing and exciting, in a world where we're told that the battles have been won, and yet we feel the inequalities all around us. Thank God she's still angry.
Katharine Viner's essay, The Personal Is Still Political, appears in On the Move: Feminism For A New Generation, edited by Natasha Walter, Virago, £9.99
