Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer was born on January 29, 1939 in Melbourne, Australia. She is an academic and a journalist and she is currently Professor Emerita of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. She is also synonymous with being one of the...

Germaine Greer was born on January 29, 1939 in Melbourne, Australia. She is an academic and a journalist and she is currently Professor Emerita of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. She is also synonymous with being one of the most prominent feminist voices of the 21st century.

Greer grew up in the bayside area of Mentone in Melbourne. Her father served in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during the Second World War and otherwise he was a newspaper advertising representative. After her schooling at the Star of the Sea College, in Gardenvale, she went to study at the University of Melbourne. She graduated in English and French language and literature and moved to Sydney and became associated with the Sydney Push. Sydney Push was a left-wing intellectual sub-culture in Sydney from the 1940s to the 1970s. Prominent lawyers, musicians, writers, infamous criminals, and others from all walks of life were part of this culture. She has referred to herself as an anarchist and a Marxist.

Greer won a Commonwealth Scholarship to study a PhD at the University of Cambridge and became part of the Newnham College. She joined the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club and became exposed to the London fine arts milieu. She wrote columns for Private Eye under the pseudonym of Rose Blight. She also wrote for the Oz magazine owned by the Australian author Richard Neville. Her PhD was based on a thesis titled The Ethic of Love and Marriage in Shakespeare's early comedies. Thereafter she received a lectureship at the University of Warwick.

Later Greer was offered a role at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma as the director for the Center of the Study of Women's Literature. She also founded the first editor of the Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. She was appointed as a special lecturer at Newnham College. She has written The Female Eunuch, Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility; The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause, Shakespeare's Wife, and The Whole Woman.