Work and Leisure

68 Judy Whiteindividuals in their own right. It resonated personally with many women,most of whom had tales of discrimination to tell.Greer’s forensic analysis, always individual and idiosyncratic, gave womenheart and energy to feel that, not only were we not alone, but also there werepossibilities for change and things could get better. Applying her argumentsto women at work in 1968, Greer noted that women formed almost 40 percent of the workforce in England, so half of the women aged 16–64 were inpaid employment (Greer 1970: 132), but the wages of women were on averagehalf that of men in the same industries. But, she asserted:equal pay for equal work will not make as great a difference in thesefigures as women might hope. The pattern of female employment followsthe course of the role that she plays outside industry: she is almost alwaysancillary, a handmaid in the more important work of men.(Greer 1970: 132)Greer saw her book as a part of the second feminist wave:The old suffragettes . . . have seen their spirit revive in younger womenwith a new and vital cast. The new emphasis is different, and the differenceis radical, for the faith that the suffragettes had in the existing politicalsystems and their deep desire to participate in them have perished.(Greer 1970: 13–14)The final chapter, entitled ‘Revolution’, speculates about what might be andhow it might happen. She states:Revolution is the festival of the oppressed. It does not understand thephrase ‘equality of opportunity’. For it seems that the opportunities willhave to be utterly changed and women’s souls changed so that they desireopportunity instead of shrinking from it.(Greer 1970: 370)To secure this revolution, Greer argued that women needed to reclaim theirbodies, their souls, their love and their hate. It was tough and exciting stuff,and women would need to be resolute to follow it through. And the amountof work that was required was, it transpired, much more than anyone couldhave anticipated: the strength and resilience of the existing edifices of powerand control, of objectivity, of ‘acceptable’ ways of knowing, of denying difference,and of the overall lack of willingness to listen and take seriouslyother ways of thinking and theorising, were palpable.Nearly 30 years later, in 1999, Greer wrote, as a ‘recantation’, a sequel toThe Female Eunuch, in The Whole Woman – ‘the book I said I would neverwrite’: