Work and Leisure

Chapter 4Gender, work and leisureJudy WhiteIntroductionIn 1970, Germaine Greer wrote:The first exercise of the free woman is to design her own mode ofrevolt; a mode which will reflect her own independence and originality.The more clearly the forms of oppression emerge in her understanding,the more clearly she can see the shape of future action. In thesearch for political awareness there is no substitute for confrontation. Itwould be too easy to present women with yet another form of selfabnegation,more opportunities for appetence and forlorn hope, butwomen have had enough bullying. They have been led by the nose andevery other way until they have to acknowledge that, like everyone else,they are lost. A feminist elite might seek to lead uncomprehendingwomen in an arbitrary direction, training them as a task force in abattle that might, that ought never to eventuate . . . Freedom is fragileand must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, isto betray it. It is not a question of telling women what to do next, oreven what to want to do next. The hope in which this book was writtenis that women will discover they have a will; once that happens theywill be able to tell us how and what they want . . . Unless the conceptsof work, play, and reward for work change absolutely, women mustcontinue to provide cheap labour, and even more, free labour exactedof right by an employer possessed of a contract for life, made out inhis favour.(Greer 1970: 23–4, 25)It is hard to explain the overwhelming feelings of recognition and amazementthat women felt on first reading The Female Eunuch: here was an articulate,funny, serious, subversive writer expanding and setting out arguments for thefoundations of a second-wave feminism. There had been nothing else like it inour lifetimes. The book offered women the right to be seen as independent