Germaine Greer's Biography

Who is Germaine Greer?

Germaine Greer was educated at Melbourne and Sydney Universities and in 1964 she left to go to England where she studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, gaining her PhD in 1967.

From 1968-1973 Greer lectured in English at Warwick University. This period encompassed the publication of her famous book, The Female Eunuch in 1970, which had a pivotal role in a key period for feminism.

Amongst other books, in 1999, Germaine Greer wrote the sequel to The Female Eunuch - The Whole Woman saying in the introduction: "The time has come to get angry again".

Greer certainly does not avoid confrontation, she once said: "The more people we annoy, the more we know we're doing it right."

Germaine Greer certainly did not mince her words in her comments a few years ago about Australia being a sports-mad suburban wasteland devoid of intellectual stimulation. Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, described her comments as "pathetic".

Greer had attracted controversy in the Southern Hemisphere before. Bizarrely in 1972 she was fined in New Zealand $40 (£15) for offensive language. The incident surrounded a speech she gave attacking anti-abortion campaigners at Auckland's Town Hall. She was arrested for swearing during the speech.

Germaine Greer has written for many periodicals and was a regular pundit on BBC2's The Late Review.

In 1998 she returned to Warwick University, where she became Professor of English and Comparative Literature Studies, but when in 2004 I looked at their website I could not see her name amongst the staff listed.

Germaine Greer was married for just over three weeks, to Paul Du Feu, who later married Maya Angelou.

In 2005, she entered Celebrity Big Brother, but quit the show. Although critical of some of her fellow housemates, for example, comparing Brigitte Nielsen to "a cat with an electrode up its arse"; Greer seems to have targeted most of her ire at the programme's producers describing them as 'bullying' and 'irresponsible'.

In 2016, she won The Oldie award of Iconoclast of the Year, partly because the previous year, she had defied a campaign to stop her speaking at Cardiff University, having been accused of making transphobic views.