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''The Female Eunuch'' is a 1970 book by Germaine Greer that became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. The main thesis of the book is that the "traditional" suburban, consumerist, nuclear family represses women sexually, and that this devitalises them, rendering them eunuchs. The book was published in London in October 1970. By March 1971, it had nearly sold out its second printing. It has been translated into eleven languages. A sequel to ''The Female Eunuch'', entitled ''The Whole Woman'', was published in 1999.〔Greer. ''The Whole Woman'' Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-60016-X〕 ==Synopsis and themes== The book is a feminist analysis, written with a mixture of polemic and scholarly research. It was a key text of the feminist movement in the 1970s, broadly discussed and criticised by other feminists and the wider community, particularly through the author's high profile in the broadcast media. In sections titled "Body", "Soul", "Love" and "Hate" Greer examines historical definitions of women's perception of self and uses a premise of imposed limitations to critique modern consumer societies, female "normality", and masculine shaping of stereotypes quoting, "The World has lost its soul, and I my sex."〔Greer, Germaine. ''The Female Eunuch''. UK: Harper Perennial, 2006.〕 In contrast to earlier feminist works, Greer uses humour, boldness, and coarse language to present a direct and candid description of female sexuality; much of this subject having remained undiscussed in English-speaking societies. Greer's irreverence towards Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis was inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's ''The Second Sex''. The work bridged academia and the contemporary arts in presenting the targets of the final section of the book, ''Revolution''; it is in accord, and often associated with, a creative and revolutionary movement of the period. Greer argues that men hate women, though the latter do not realise this and are taught to hate themselves.〔Wallace 1997〕 Greer references the loss of women's freedom with the "sudden death of communism" (1989) as catapult for women the world over for a sudden transition into consumer Western society wherein there is little to no protection for mothers and the disabled; here, there is no freedom to speak: The freedom I pleaded for twenty years ago was freedom to be a person, with dignity, integrity, nobility, passion, pride that constitute personhood. Freedom to run, shout, talk loudly and sit with your knees apart. Freedom to know and love the earth and all that swims, lies, and crawls upon it...most of the women in the world are still afraid, still hungry, still mute and loaded by religion with all kinds of fetters, masked, muzzled, mutilated and beaten. "The title is an indication of the problem," Greer told ''The New York Times''. "Women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality. They've become suspicious about it. Like beasts, for example, who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master's ulterior motives—to be fattened or made docile—women have been cut off from their capacity for action. It's a process that sacrifices vigor for delicacy and succulence, and one that's got to be changed." Greer argues that change had to come about via revolution, not evolution. Women should get to know and come to accept their own bodies, taste their own menstrual blood, and give up celibacy and monogamy. Yet they should not burn their bras. "Bras are a ludicrous invention," she wrote, "but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression."〔Foreword to the Paladin 21st Anniversary Edition, 2006.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Female Eunuch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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