The Female Eunuch

Greer begins the book by summarizing her main points and outlining its organization. She situates this book as a work of second-wave feminism, both to distance her beliefs from those of first-wave feminists and to highlight her radical feminist stance.

There are five main parts in this book: “Body,” “Soul,” “Love,” “Hate,” and “Revolution.” The work begins with “Body” to illuminate the depth of oppression that women face. The second part, “Soul,” defines “the dominant image of femininity which rules our culture and to which all women aspire” (18), a concept Greer calls the “Eternal Feminine.” “Love” illustrates how the false dichotomy of men versus women has led to the reduction of “heterosexual contact” into “sadomasochism.” “Hate” furthers the arguments of “Love” and illustrates the ramifications of a society that hates women and teaches women to hate themselves. Finally, “Revolution” ends the book as a call to action, elaborating on what it would take to reach and proliferate a revolution.

This section discusses the imposed regulation of women’s bodies through prescribed beauty standards and lack of or false education about the female body and its natural functions. Regulation of the female body reflects society’s hatred of women—both the hatred internalized by women and the externally imposed hatred to which they are subjected.

By employing various elements of female anatomy as examples, Greer argues that “the dogmatism of science expresses the status quo as the ineluctable result of law” and is, therefore, used to justify prejudices against women through official channels (16-17). This section explores reclamation of the female body through questioning the norms associated with femininity, and it examines the appropriation and exploitation of the female body as a sex object.

Sexism discriminates against women because of their gender, and such oppression is unsupported by scientific findings about the differences between the sexes. Though she does not defined them explicitly, Greer presents gender and sex as different aspects of the same notion: Gender is a performative, learned, socially mediated construct, and sex is a biological identification developed before birth. The dichotomization of men and women as the only two sexes that are necessarily in opposition is false; there is no scientific basis for this division, and the genetic difference between men and women is minute. The overarching argument is that society’s imposition and presupposition of heterosexuality as the only or “right” mode of sexual expression is unscientific and damaging.

Beauty standards (such as corsets or high heels) and the regulation of physical activity can permanently affect the shape and posture of bones. For example, beginning corseting at a young age can lead to the permanent reshaping of a woman’s ribcage if the practice continues throughout her life. Such modification of the skeleton illustrates that sexism permeates all aspects of a woman’s existence. There are many assumptions made regarding the skeleton that illustrate the pervasive nature of sexism and misogyny; for example, it is most often assumed that a skeleton of smaller stature is a woman’s, even though there are men and women of all statures. There are also falsehoods that persist regarding bone structure, such as the “extra rib” myth that stems from the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible (37).

An “attractive” female figure must have the curves deemed acceptable according to current societal standards. Beauty standards change over time and are contradictory, which indicates that they arbitrarily control women’s bodies rather than reflect ideas of morality. For example, bigger breasts are more beautiful than smaller ones, but only if “they show no signs of their function” or a woman’s age (39). Most women struggle to accept their natural shapes, and some go to great lengths to embody beauty standards or impose them on other women. Imposing arbitrary, conflicting beauty standards fundamentally limits the potential of women who feel they must alter their natural appearance to be beautiful because they expend energy on achieving beauty instead of other goals.

Another method of control exercised on the female body relates to hair, particularly the common practice of women removing nearly all their body hair except the hair on their head, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Not only is hairiness not linked to sex (men and women can both be naturally more or less hairy), but bodily hygiene—which should be the primary criterion that determines what makes a body desirable according to Greer—is unrelated to hair removal standards. She encourages women to ask themselves why they shave certain parts of their bodies and what this depilation might afford them. Expecting a hairless woman is one component of infantilization, especially the beauty standard of adult women shaving all or most of their pubic hair.

Greer makes two primary arguments concerning female sex organs and sexual intercourse: (1) Accurate knowledge of the female sex organs and sexual pleasure is inaccessible to women, and (2) Women are the objects of sexual pleasure, not the agents. Girls are taught not to explore their anatomy or sexuality because of the shame they are taught to feel about their bodies. This shame extends to medicine, wherein women often avoid seeking help for problems relating to their reproductive organs, and doctors are less likely to take such claims seriously when women make them. Discussions about sex most often portray women as the objects of male sexual pleasure, even when framed around a woman’s pleasure. Such discussions either hyper-focus on the clitoris as the sole source of sexual stimulation for a woman, acting as a “substitution of genitality for sexuality” (49), or they avoid mention of genitalia altogether, offering an unrealistic image of sex. Greer argues that even though women can enjoy sexual experiences in which they are the object of male desire, women cannot fulfill or understand their own desires if they have no agency.

Girls are taught about the functions of their anatomy as they relate to reproduction, not in terms of their relation to sexual intercourse. Because this focus concerns the negative aspects of female sex organs, such as menstruation and the difficulties of childbirth, girls suppress sexual urges and are unaware of the pleasure that positive sexual experiences can offer. The uterus receives too much emphasis in discussions about female anatomy, and as a result women remain undereducated about other normal functions of their sex organs. This situation renders many women unable to identify problems with these parts of their body when they occur. Throughout history, diagnoses of “hysteria,” a pseudo-medical umbrella term that does not refer to any real illness or condition, have curtailed women’s access to appropriate physical and mental health resources. Reclaiming knowledge of all sex organs and gynecology would allow women to regain the necessary autonomy over their bodies to achieve sexual liberation.