I do think that women could make politics irrelevant; by a kind of spontaneous cooperative action the like of which we have never seen; which is so far from peopleโs ideas of state structure or viable social structure that it seems to them like total anarchy โ when what it really is, is very subtle forms of interrelation that do not follow some heirarchal pattern which is fundamentally patriarchal. The opposite to patriarchy is not matriarchy but fraternity, yet I think itโs women who are going to have to break this spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation.
Germaine GreerEven crushed against his brother in the Tube the average Englishman pretends desperately that he is alone.
Germaine GreerPerhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism.
Germaine GreerMany a housewife staring at the back of her husband's newspaper, or listening to his breathing in bed is lonelier than any spinster in a rented room.
Germaine GreerRather than seek to be squired and dated by their rivals why should it not be possible for women to find relaxation and pleasure in the company of their 'inferiors'? They would need to shed their desperate need to admire a man, and accept the gentler role of loving him. A learned woman cannot castrate a truck-driver like she can her intellectual rival, because he has no exaggerated respect for her bookish capacities. The alternative to conventional education is not stupidity, and many a clever girl needs the corrective of a humbler soul's genuine wisdom.
Germaine Greer