I’ve just finished listening to Germaine Greer on Margaret Throsby’s show this morning. I really like Margaret Throsby – a relaxed and respectful interviewer, she draws her guests out, allows them plenty of space, gets down to personal stuff.
Greer talks about her Anne Hathaway book, life as an academic in England, her family and childhood, schooling, singing, Steve Irwin, Pavarotti, treaty with Indigenous people, children in society and the fuzzy thinking around the so-called “fertility crisis”.
I also love that the guests get to share their favourite music along the way. Greer’s music choices (which are not available on the podcast for copyright reasons) include Rameau’s Tambourin, Yothu Yindi’s “Treaty”, and Frank Zappa’s G-Spot Tornado (which she wants played at her funeral).
The podcast has just become available here at the ABC site.
Categories: gender & feminism, media
Wonder Woman movie marketing machine tied up in knots 
2016 Hoydens: Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher 
This my axiom, by me, which is mine 
Grabbing somebody is Assault, and sexual touch makes it Sexual Assault. Stop minimising this. #rapeculture101 
Hoyden About Town 
Thanks for the link – there’s music on the podcast I’m listening to now.
Ah, Germs. She’s quite fascinating but also quite irritating at times. Her most recent comments on Hillary Clinton certainly irritated me: right up there with her judgemental statements on Princess Diana and Steve Irwin, two other people that she’d only met on the celebrity circuit and doesn’t actually know well personally.
I like her when she’s being rigorously scholarly, I like her when she’s being opinionated about popular cultural anthropology stuff. I just wish she’d be more rigorous when she falls into the temptation of discussing people publicly that she doesn’t actually know that much more about than any of the rest of us.
I suspect the most interesting people are irritating and fascinating. Saw Germs give a talk on Monday night. She’s very witty, very intelligent and she provokes thought. Of course, the Australian press don’t like her, but it’s often for brute honesty. She’s certainly not always right, but she certainly has cemented her place in history.
I suspect you’re right.
I reeeeeeeeeeeally like Germaine Greer. She is ours, and there are so few world-famous feminists and to have one who is Australian (even reluctantly at times) makes me smile. I appreciate that she endeavours to remain contemporary by participating in the analysis of pop culture, although sometimes her comments are less than considered. I didn’t like her views on female circumcision expressed a while back either but Greer pushes everyone along towards more moral thinking and I admire her for that. I always look forward to another opportunity to see her speak live.
P.S Thanks lauredhel for alerting me to this podcast.
blue milk’s last blog post..Inflation
I still have a great fondness for our other big-name Australian feminist, Dale Spender, who still dresses in purple to honour the suffragists even though she doesn’t write so much on feminism any more.
P.S. Dale Spender is very involved with a program to assist homeless women in Australia – Second Chance.
Natalia Antonova on Greer
I agree with what she says in that post, both with regards to Greer and the older generation of feminists who cling to Greer
As always, a fascinating interview with this most lively, questing mind. Throsby was way out of her depth and GG’s league even on the level of classical music literacy and comprehension. Would have been good to have had a more simpatico interviewer.
Must say the way GG spoke about her mother, who is still alive, but it seems in a nursing home, was odd, or remarkable, or a lot of other painful and indescribable things. But then I went through what she currently is at an age 25 years younger. It’s never easy and Germaine is obviously still extremely angry at the parents, which is surprising, and sad.
I look forward to her 70th birthday letter of thanksgiving to Life.
Sad too that she said that she wished The Female Eunuch wasn’t still in print. It’s true, as she says, that so much remains unchanged for women.
You don’t get much more offhand an interviewer than this one; assumed a subject’s live ma dead in a fairly detailed exchange whence the subject had given a generous and unprompted insight into her own motivations around the aging of a parent.
To Greer’s credit, she corrected the interviewer with the briefest of well-mannered comments and continued to share herself through the rest of the ‘conversation’.
Sadly for the audience, Throsby didn’t take up a single invitation to share the many enthusiasms that Greer revealed. And, because I prefer to research the basics just a little before I open my mouth, Throsby’s background in formal music could have allowed for a lot more to-and-fro around Greer’s obvious delight in the voice.
So I couldn’t share our host’s opinion of Throsby as either relaxed or respectful on the evidence of this interview; bored or scared was more like it.
Hi;
I also heard the interview on life matters .I was very impressed with the idea about writing a letter thanking the planet for its support for 70 years.I wish I could find that letter;I would read it to everybody at my 70th which is next saturday.
How can I get it?
Best Regards,,
Ron.