Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer (/ɡrɪər/; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian-born writer, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. She lives in the United Kingdom, where she has held academic positions, specializing in English literature, at the University of Warwick and Newnham College, Cambridge.

Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her first book, The Female Eunuch (1970), became an international best-seller and made her a household name. In it Greer offered a systematic deconstruction of ideas such as womanhood and femininity, arguing that women are forced to assume submissive roles in society to fulfill male fantasies of what being a woman entails.

Her work since then has focused on literature, feminism and the environment. Later books include Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984), The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991), The Whole Woman (1999), Shakespeare's Wife (2007) and White Beech: The Rainforest Years (2013). She owns and finances Stump Cross Books, which publishes the work of 17th- and 18th-century women poets.