0:01

All right, let's do this. Hello

0:09

again. Louis Theroux here. Welcome

0:11

to my Spotify podcast called

0:14

The Louis Theroux Podcast. No

0:17

jokes. That's what

0:20

it's called. In

0:25

this episode, we are speaking to Germaine

0:28

Greer, writer, professor,

0:30

intellectual, and one of

0:32

the major voices, definitely the

0:35

most famous exponent of second

0:37

wave feminism, which, if

0:41

you didn't know, is the one that was in the 70s.

0:44

Yeah, I know about this stuff. She

0:47

wrote The Female Eunuch in

0:49

1970 or thereabouts, The

0:52

Year I Was Born. So that's two great things

0:55

that happened that year, but

0:57

the Beatles broke up. It was

0:59

a seminal text, a bestseller around the

1:01

world. It made Germaine

1:03

a household name. Having dipped

1:05

into it, it's maybe not what

1:07

you would think. Like, I guess

1:09

it's a polemic, but it's very much

1:12

about not just the idea

1:14

of women's power, but

1:16

also sort of the idea that women

1:18

have been castrated from being their full

1:20

selves and especially in their sexual self-expression.

1:25

She spoke openly about topics that

1:27

at the time were taboo, menstruation,

1:30

hormonal changes, pregnancy, menopause, sexual

1:32

arousal, and orgasm, which

1:36

nowadays, I wouldn't say that's routine.

1:39

There's probably further to go on that stuff, but that

1:41

time it was even more the case that people

1:43

didn't speak about those subjects. Since

1:46

the beginning of her career, she's been

1:48

known for being outspoken and often controversial,

1:50

calling for reduced sentences for rape, dismissing

1:53

the Me Too movement as, quote, ''winching''

1:55

and most recently criticized for

1:58

comments around the trans community. She's

2:00

a hero to some and to her

2:03

critics, she's outdated and out of touch.

2:06

And I felt for me that in this chat that

2:08

kind of the fact that she's made

2:10

her life's mission to be

2:12

unflappable, unshockable, I felt

2:15

we could sail close to the wind. She

2:19

may have spent much of her life living between

2:21

homes in Essex and Italy, but for the last

2:23

few years, she's moved back to

2:25

Australia, where she resides in

2:27

an aged care facility. I

2:32

was interested in her because, well,

2:34

she's a legend. She's in her

2:36

mid-80s and has never

2:39

really in her life stopped, well,

2:41

been out of the headlines for long and

2:44

never been afraid to court controversy. In

2:46

fact, you could say part

2:48

of her brand has been sort of

2:51

shooting from the hip on subjects where

2:53

others might hold back. And that's one her a

2:55

lot of appreciation, but

2:58

also obviously got her

3:00

into hot water. And

3:04

for me, like also growing up as a son

3:06

to a feminist mum, you know,

3:08

in the early 70s, well, 70s

3:10

and 80s, Germaine was a figure

3:12

in our house. I don't mean literally, it was just

3:14

someone I was aware of. And

3:17

I think it's fair to say my mum was a

3:20

fan and regarded the gospel

3:22

of Germaine as something that was liberating

3:24

and helpful at times, while definitely

3:26

not endorsing every aspect

3:29

of her opinions. I

3:32

approached the conversation with a degree of apprehension,

3:34

actually, or did I?

3:37

Like I always want to, you know, I always feel a

3:39

degree of apprehension. I want to bring my A game, especially

3:41

when talking to someone with

3:43

the years behind her that Germaine has,

3:46

you know, that level of kind of

3:48

output and kind of consistent

3:51

production. But I

3:54

was also aware there were people probably who thought I

3:57

shouldn't be doing the chat because of some of the comments

3:59

that. remains made. Rather than just

4:01

do a deep dive into her life and work,

4:03

I was also keen to get her insights and

4:05

thoughts on the present

4:08

culture more generally. So yeah,

4:11

look out for that and me trying

4:13

to explain basically the internet and what

4:15

not to her. Maybe

4:18

that's a bit unfair but you could be

4:20

the judge. The conversation took

4:22

place remotely. It was 8 a.m. in

4:24

London and 6 p.m. in

4:26

Castle Main, a small town

4:29

a couple of hours drive from Melbourne in Australia.

4:32

As you can imagine there are warnings

4:34

around language and adult content. We talk

4:36

about sex in some detail. We discuss

4:38

subjects like rape, sexual assault and domestic

4:41

abuse. Some

4:43

of Germaine's views can of course cause

4:45

offense, especially those that bear

4:47

upon the trans community. All

4:50

of that and much much more. 1,

5:14

2, 1, 2. That's Louis. Hello. Here I

5:17

am. Hi Louis. Hi, can

5:19

you hear me? I certainly can.

5:21

How are you doing? Fine,

5:23

thank you. Thank you for doing this. I've

5:26

wanted to speak to you for a while and so

5:28

I appreciate you making the time. I'm

5:31

jealous now you've got a wine bottle in

5:33

shot in vision. It's a little later. I'm

5:35

gonna stop by asking where are you? Where's

5:37

my wine bottle? I don't know. There's one

5:39

behind you. There you go. And

5:43

what's... There's a glass over

5:45

there. Obviously I've got a coffee. It being

5:47

10 past 8 in the morning where

5:49

I am. Where are you and what time is it where you are?

5:53

I'm in Kessel, Maine, which

5:55

is an old mining town from

5:57

way back. And

6:00

I live in aged care, which

6:03

means I'm taken care of and

6:07

I can have almost anything I

6:09

need, except

6:12

I can't just take off

6:14

and disappear, although it's quite a

6:16

tempting idea, I realise. I

6:21

don't know how I feel about aged care. It all

6:23

happens in a sort of accidental way. But

6:26

whether I'll stay in aged care is another

6:28

matter. You're

6:31

looking at me thoughtfully. Do

6:33

you realise that I once used to work

6:36

for your mother? Did you know that? Funnily

6:39

enough, I was talking to her about this

6:41

night before last. I said I'm speaking to

6:43

Jermaine Greer and I knew

6:45

that she'd had some professional association. My

6:47

mum, for those who don't know, is

6:50

a producer for the BBC World Service

6:52

working mainly on arts programmes. So do

6:54

you recall what it was that you

6:57

worked with her on? I

6:59

don't recall, but I think there was more than

7:01

one. I think there

7:03

would have been. I think I might have done several.

7:05

She said that she might have got you in to

7:07

do something about Shakespeare and then the last minute it

7:09

was no longer Shakespeare, it was a film. I can't

7:11

remember what film it was. And

7:14

then my mum says that she said, well,

7:16

we'll keep Jermaine anyway because she'll be brilliant

7:18

on that as well. And that you were,

7:20

you discoursed, you know, wittily

7:23

and thoughtfully about whatever the

7:25

different project was, the different film. But

7:27

you know, it's funny you mentioning my mum because my

7:30

mum and you were of a similar generation. My

7:32

mum's a couple of years younger. She was born

7:34

in 1942. My

7:36

dad born in 1941. I think you were born in

7:38

1939. But reading

7:41

the Female Universe and thinking about some of

7:43

the ideas in it, specifically the

7:46

suspicion of the institution of marriage

7:48

and the idea that perhaps

7:50

it doesn't serve everyone's needs best, sort

7:53

of made me understand a little more

7:55

about my own parents' ambivalence about

7:57

marriage. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn by the

7:59

end. saying that because it's an intimate thing.

8:02

I just wonder whether for you, is it still

8:05

your view that marriage is basically

8:07

a flawed, highly

8:09

suspect kind of a thing? Well,

8:13

that really is my position, I

8:15

think. When

8:17

people used to come around asking

8:20

what I thought about gay marriage,

8:23

I'd say things like why do

8:25

they want to get married? It's

8:27

a bad system and people suffer

8:29

in that system. The

8:31

more they try to make it work, the more

8:34

they suffer. Damn it. We

8:36

can't keep doing this. Every

8:39

time you turn around, marriage is

8:41

being eulogized again as if it

8:43

was the proper destiny of

8:46

male and female or female and female

8:48

or male and male. I

8:51

even wonder about heterosex.

8:54

Is that a totally false

8:56

position that we're pretending to be

8:58

better mates than we really are?

9:02

I don't know because women work so

9:04

hard to make marriages work and

9:06

it just seems to make the

9:08

state of bondage even more apparent

9:11

and more unbearable. When

9:13

I look around at marriages in

9:15

my peer group, one thing I notice is

9:17

I think divorce is slightly less common than

9:19

it was maybe 20 or 30 years ago,

9:22

but a lot of that may be to do with marriage

9:25

being increasingly kind of a business

9:28

proposition and that it makes

9:30

sense for tax reasons. Divorce is

9:32

very expensive. You own a

9:34

house together. There's all these economic

9:37

factors that militate in favor

9:39

of keeping a marriage on

9:42

track. That may be all

9:44

very well, but the side effect is that

9:46

sex is quite far down the list and

9:48

in fact may not be a feature of

9:51

or not a significant feature of a lot

9:53

of marriages now. Do you have any

9:55

thoughts on that? Is that something you ... does that

9:57

chime with you in any way? Well,

10:00

a lot of us got to do with age. Do

10:03

we get married now younger than we did before?

10:05

Well, we certainly live longer, right? I think it's

10:07

actually older. We get married slightly older, but

10:09

we now live to be 80, 90, 100 years

10:11

old. So

10:13

you stay married for maybe 70 years, in

10:16

theory, or you can do. Yes. Which

10:18

is slightly unrealistic in terms of keeping,

10:20

you know, mating in captivity, as they

10:22

say. Something

10:24

I think about is to what

10:26

extent it's realistic or reasonable to

10:29

expect joyous sex to be taking

10:31

place within a 70-year-long

10:33

relationship, and to what extent

10:36

that's important. But

10:38

that connects with the worst problem, which

10:41

is how much of the sex that

10:43

is being had in our

10:46

current system is

10:49

actually wanted by

10:51

both parties, in

10:53

particular the female. We

10:55

don't talk about that, really. We don't talk

10:58

about a woman's right to

11:00

refuse if

11:02

you're not forthcoming, if you're mean,

11:05

if you're fed up with him, bored

11:08

by him, sick of

11:10

his way of making love, whatever. It's

11:14

yours, your fault. You're the one

11:16

who didn't keep the flame burning.

11:20

But you got married when you were children,

11:22

virtually. What did you know about keeping

11:25

flames burning? Nothing. I

11:27

find it hard, really, really hard.

11:30

And you're given advice, but it's

11:34

somehow assuming that

11:37

the person giving you the advice knows more about

11:39

it than you do. The

11:42

only person who knows about your marriage is you and your

11:45

partner, who we now have to

11:47

call a partner as if you're both in business

11:49

together. It's hard. It's

11:52

really hard. And with

11:54

both partners, you see, this is the

11:56

real killer. With both partners working out

11:58

of the house. How

12:01

do you make it work? You're both tired.

12:04

And so that means a

12:07

moment of not understanding how much

12:09

structure there had to be to

12:12

support marriages and people living

12:14

in monogamous splendor.

12:19

So what's the answer? Polyamory?

12:24

Apart from being a silly word. It's

12:26

silly because it's a mixture of Latin

12:28

and Greek, right? Is the prefix poly

12:31

Greek or no? Poly is Greek.

12:34

Yeah and Amor is Latin. Yeah

12:36

but it's not even proper Latin. No.

12:38

But nevertheless polyamory, the idea of

12:40

consensual non-monogamy, which is

12:42

quite a trendy thing now, although how

12:44

workable it is in the long term,

12:47

I think in my own mind

12:49

at least, slightly up for grabs. But in

12:51

a sense it's been around for ages and

12:54

certainly sexually it avails you of more opportunities.

12:56

But whether there's any stability there I think

12:58

is the question. But what are your thoughts?

13:02

Well if you haven't open marriage as we used

13:04

to call, you

13:06

were supposed to give each other certain

13:09

liberties. But I

13:11

think there were easy ways to

13:14

betray it. I

13:16

don't think you were supposed to use the

13:18

love word except as the Latin hammery. I

13:21

think you were supposed to not put

13:24

too much strain upon the basic

13:26

relationship. But everything depends on whether

13:29

there are children, apart

13:31

from the fact of whether there are debts held

13:34

in common, whether you're both working off

13:36

the mortgage and the insurance. The

13:39

case that's made sometimes is the idea

13:42

that without marriage, and this is something

13:44

that's talked about actually by Jordan

13:46

Peterson and it's sort of informed aspects of

13:49

the kind of the manosphere and in-cell culture,

13:51

is the idea that if you

13:53

have a kind of free market of sexual

13:55

opportunity, it becomes very hierarchical

13:57

very quickly and you have these sort of...

14:00

alpha good-looking high achieving guys

14:03

who accrue tons of

14:05

women who have the sort of virtual

14:07

kind of harems and that then

14:09

these beta guys end up

14:11

with no one I know that's it kind of

14:13

weird and I'm not advocating that position but do

14:16

you see that as a possibility so in other

14:18

words that monogamy kind of gives

14:20

a chance to us losers I suppose. Well

14:24

confusing some things I think because

14:27

marriage is not the same as monogamy I find

14:30

the whole thing grim I

14:34

find it grim that young women grow up

14:36

thinking they've got to find a husband and

14:39

that's where the first mistake is made you

14:41

think you find someone who will treat you

14:44

in a sensitive way or a humane

14:47

way and you don't because

14:50

he starts feeling trapped and

14:52

why does he feel trapped I mean he wants

14:55

a wife but he wants

14:57

a wife who doesn't take

14:59

up too much time and these days it's

15:02

a wife who has to go to work

15:05

and earn less than he does and the

15:07

thing that used to get me was women

15:10

are the people you see running at

15:12

lunchtime why are they running

15:14

because they've got all the bills to pay the

15:16

food to buy the choice to make of things

15:18

to eat or whatever and

15:20

it's exhausting and then

15:23

they're supposed to be engaging and

15:25

entertaining and sweet and funny when

15:28

all they used to want to do is

15:30

give him his dinner and send him off

15:32

to the pub that was what the pub

15:34

was for but now pubs are closing but

15:37

it's the one escape hatch has been

15:40

battened down or is getting battened down

15:42

I don't have a smart answer here

15:44

I lasted three

15:47

weeks in my marriage my

15:50

husband made me sleep on the floor the very

15:52

first night why I

15:54

have no idea he then went and married

15:56

Maya Angelou and they lived happily ever after

15:59

so that I should actually study

16:01

it and find out what I did wrong. I

16:04

know that it comes up a lot in the interviews that

16:06

you do the fact that notwithstanding your

16:08

opposition to marriage that you got married yourself in

16:10

May 1968 to a man called Paul Dufer

16:15

for three weeks you say although I think it

16:17

was functional for three weeks and then you but

16:19

you didn't immediately divorce him right in other words

16:21

you remained married a bit longer than three weeks

16:23

is that right? No

16:26

I don't think it is right I mean as far as

16:28

I was concerned I was gone. I

16:30

ran away and he followed

16:33

me and I said to him I ran

16:35

away because I was frightened and I can't

16:38

live with a man I'm afraid of but

16:41

lots of women are living with men they're

16:43

afraid of. This is a

16:45

bit of a side track but let's stay on it for a

16:47

minute. Why did you marry him?

16:52

Because he asked me. I

16:54

think it was like when you had your 16th

16:57

birthday party and you

16:59

had to get a kiss before the dreaded

17:02

night so they couldn't say sweet 16 and

17:04

never been kissed it was a bit like

17:06

that and

17:08

actually I quite did I quite fancy him?

17:12

Probably. I think you did I

17:14

mean I'm not not I don't think I should

17:16

be telling you that but I think you did

17:18

and I think I think

17:20

he when you saw him he had sort of

17:22

cement or paint on his boots and maybe

17:25

he looked like a kind of like

17:28

a hunky bit of rough or something whatever the

17:30

term would be and you

17:33

shagged each other's brains out I think if I

17:35

can put it that way. I'm trying to remember.

17:40

You've said that clever women should marry truck

17:42

drivers. Oh yes

17:44

I think but I think

17:46

it's the notion that you should be

17:48

in competition with your husband is a

17:51

bad notion but of course

17:53

if you're a poet you marry a poet and

17:56

you end up being Sylvia Platt but

17:58

we always think that we. need

18:00

that status in our

18:02

husband. He doesn't think he needs

18:05

that status in us. So there's

18:07

an imbalance at the very beginning. And I

18:11

mean Ted Hughes now, what do we think? Ted

18:14

Hughes is a great poet and

18:16

Sylvia is a woman poet, a

18:18

female poet and a martyr.

18:23

I mean looking back over the things you've written

18:25

and the things that have been written about you,

18:27

I think what struck me more than anything, which

18:29

may say more about me and my prurient

18:32

interest was the amount of lust

18:35

in there. Are you okay talking about

18:37

sexual matters? I'm only asking it to

18:39

be polite really, but I'm going to

18:41

assume that you are. And then so

18:45

going back, which you said, but you

18:47

were co-founder of a pornographic

18:50

magazine called Suck based

18:52

in Amsterdam, which

18:55

I think you said at the

18:57

time what you was intended as a sort

18:59

of, I suppose, a more

19:01

thoughtful or less exploitative

19:03

alternative to magazines like

19:06

Screw and Hustler. Tell

19:08

me a bit about that if you would. Well

19:11

it was pretty straightforward. I

19:13

hated the idea of Screw for

19:15

obvious reasons. And we know that

19:17

most of the language for sex

19:20

is destructive. It is about

19:23

screwing rather than whatever the other thing

19:25

is that you do. But making

19:28

love these days, what does it

19:30

mean? It means

19:32

whatever you want it to mean, I

19:34

suppose. And so

19:36

I wanted to do Suck because

19:41

it's gentle, because you

19:43

don't kill people. But you

19:45

can certainly kill them with

19:48

penetrative sex. Easy peasy. And

19:51

I really wanted it to

19:53

be different in that we didn't use

19:56

models for the

19:58

sexual pictures. ourselves,

20:02

which was pretty daring I suppose because

20:05

we were middle-aged all of us and

20:08

of course what actually happened was

20:10

that they used a picture of me

20:13

on page 3 which

20:15

in those days was a significant

20:17

number because it was the page 3

20:19

girls in the tabloid

20:21

press that were causing the fuss

20:23

with feminists for example and

20:26

I really wanted us to

20:28

make nudity not

20:32

a situation in which the nude

20:34

people were being oppressed or rejected

20:37

or dehumanized or whatever it would

20:39

be us in

20:41

all of our middle-aged and glory.

20:45

So I'm going to throw a quote at

20:47

you. Here we go from an article in

20:49

Oz that I think either you wrote or

20:51

maybe it was an interview you were

20:54

quoted as saying star fuckers are name I

20:56

dig because all the men who get inside

20:58

me are stars even if

21:00

they're plumbers they're star plumbers. What

21:03

do you think I meant? I don't

21:06

know if I'm I have no idea. A

21:09

star fucker was

21:11

someone who looked

21:14

for a star to add to

21:16

her list and so

21:18

people like the Beatles

21:21

or people like Jimi Hendrix or

21:24

were very desirable because they

21:26

were stars. It

21:28

was from a piece called the universal tongue

21:30

bath groupies vision another

21:33

quote was the group fuck is

21:35

the highest ritual expression of our

21:37

faith but it has to happen

21:40

as a special sort of grace.

21:42

Well yes that was

21:44

probably after the

21:48

wet dream film festival where

21:50

we all trooped across to

21:52

Holland and

21:55

watched tedious porno

21:58

movies and somebody's said,

22:00

we need to get it on. We're

22:02

being hypocritical, we're watching other people and

22:04

it's synthetic and dah-dee-dah. And

22:08

we did all end up on

22:10

the stage behind a screen that

22:13

projected our image and

22:15

we ended up apparently

22:18

having group sex, which

22:20

is the highest expression

22:22

of the porno-religion. But porn isn't a

22:25

religion, it's an industry, as you and

22:27

I well know. And

22:30

that was part of it. It

22:32

was meant to be playing, that what you're

22:35

doing in sex when you're not

22:37

trying to procreate or cement a

22:39

relationship is you're playing. You

22:43

seem to have a moment where you got

22:45

into rock music in the late 60s having

22:47

been more maybe classically orientated and

22:51

then part of that was throwing yourself

22:53

into the rock scene and announcing yourself

22:55

as a groupie. What was

22:57

that all about? And how much was that

22:59

theoretical and how much of that was actually

23:02

practical? What

23:04

I was trying to do here was

23:07

to elevate women's

23:09

sexuality, however promiscuous and

23:12

playful to the same

23:14

level that men's sexuality was raised.

23:16

Now the person who actually

23:19

redeemed the groupies from

23:22

a program was

23:25

another friend of mine who

23:27

was, I've

23:30

forgotten his name, you know who I

23:32

mean. Is it a musician?

23:35

It is a musician and it's a famous musician

23:37

who died of prostate cancer, Frank.

23:41

Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa. Sorry,

23:44

Zappa means plow of course, so

23:47

I'm skirting away from the thought

23:49

of hard work but I

23:52

made up a personality for myself as

23:54

Dr. Greer the day tripper which

23:56

was meant to say look this is how we

23:58

play. And people know us.

24:02

And so for quite a few musicians,

24:04

they were lonely on tour, with misery

24:06

on tour. To know that there was

24:08

a groupie who knew the ropes, who

24:11

knew what you needed and had a room

24:13

where you could get some sleep or where

24:16

you could even bring someone else. We

24:18

were like hostesses really.

24:22

I didn't do as much of that as anybody

24:24

else did, as a matter of fact, but I

24:26

wrote about it in order to elevate the

24:29

type really. Did

24:31

you have a thing with Robert Plant or

24:34

not? Look,

24:38

one thing is, the men in my life have never

24:41

written about me, which I've always

24:43

found extraordinary because the Spice Girls

24:45

only had to pop into bed for

24:48

five seconds and it was all over

24:50

the tabloids. But my

24:52

boyfriends were better behaved, so

24:54

there's that. What

24:57

was the other part of that question? Forgot

24:59

it already. I think

25:02

I was inviting you to be discreet about

25:04

some of your past relationships and you were

25:06

very politely declined. No, no, I wouldn't do that.

25:09

The really important thing to me is that they've

25:11

never written about me. And for

25:13

some of them, it would have been

25:15

a blessing because they needed the money,

25:17

but they didn't do it. And

25:20

I will always be grateful for

25:22

that. And so I'm

25:24

not gonna do the same thing

25:26

for them. You're basing that on

25:28

a famous photograph which appears online,

25:30

which is Robert Plant and me

25:33

sitting together talking. There

25:36

was more to it than that, but not much. We

25:38

were both traveling. One went one way, one went the

25:40

other way. I respected him

25:42

as a musician and I liked him as

25:44

a person. Looking

25:47

back, do you feel satisfied with

25:50

sort of how your romantic life has gone,

25:52

if that's not a weird question? Do

25:56

you feel like you've sucked, that you've drunk life to

25:58

the dregs in that sense? Well,

26:01

it sounds a bit precious that I

26:03

don't think I ever thought of my

26:06

life as requiring that sort of satisfaction.

26:09

I always loved what I did. I had fun doing

26:12

it. I did it as well as I could and

26:14

sometimes it was good. Sometimes

26:17

it was very, very good. Sometimes it wasn't

26:19

good at all. But we all have

26:21

that. You do that. I do that. Well,

26:24

I'm conscious, I'm 53 and I'm conscious of the

26:26

years going by and suddenly I'm on the other

26:29

side of the hill with a slight feeling of,

26:31

oh wow, did I get everything out of

26:33

that passage of life that I was supposed

26:35

to. When you look back,

26:37

do you find yourself thinking about the past much

26:39

or do you stay very much sort of in

26:41

the here and now? It's

26:44

usually things that trigger it, like

26:47

a death in the paper. Someone

26:50

I know, the one where you think,

26:53

I meant to do this, this and this and

26:55

I didn't do it and now you're gone and

26:57

now I'll never be able to do it. I

27:01

hate that. And I

27:03

am distracted. I'm not a good, I'm

27:05

a terrible friend. It's

27:08

the one thing I should regret

27:10

is that I ignore

27:12

people. I leave them

27:15

out. I forget them. I get all

27:17

involved in working out

27:19

which fern grows on which

27:21

aspect of my garden. I

27:24

do finding out if someone's lonely and

27:26

miserable and ill. Well,

27:29

that could, I mean, that's very human, I think. I

27:32

think I'm a bit guilty of that. So

27:36

as we speak, it's 2023, I believe. And

27:40

going back over your work, reading

27:43

the female eunuch and dipping into other

27:45

books of yours and so

27:47

much has changed in the culture. The female eunuch

27:49

came out in 1970, which

27:52

is 53 years ago, unless my

27:54

master's gone wrong. And with

27:56

all the changes that have taken place in

27:58

the last five years. decades, whether

28:01

you see any sense

28:03

of progress having been made. Progress

28:07

is an odd idea isn't it? Do

28:10

I think things are better? I wish,

28:14

I wish. I mean one of the lead

28:16

stories in today's paper is

28:19

about how they discovered that

28:21

endometriosis is genetically

28:23

connected to some other hideous

28:28

problem that women have. Women are now

28:30

sicker than they were when I wrote

28:32

the female eunuch and

28:34

they're also in this

28:36

country they're paying the fortune,

28:39

a fortune to

28:41

get ordinary medical treatment which

28:43

I find amazing. A

28:45

hundred dollars for a visit to the doctor.

28:47

I mean England gets a

28:49

bit grim from time to time, I don't think

28:51

it's that grim. Extraordinary.

28:55

Endometriosis, that disease didn't even exist

28:57

when I wrote the female eunuch.

28:59

So if you're asking me about

29:01

progress, finding new diseases

29:04

that you can't treat cannot

29:06

really be called progress. What

29:10

about, we have a situation now

29:13

where there are more women in the workplace,

29:15

I mean I'm just positing this to sort

29:17

of gauge your thoughts on it. More women

29:19

in the workplace, more women at the highest

29:21

echelons of power, you know female prime

29:24

ministers and presidents and whatnot,

29:26

do you see that as a kind of

29:28

improvement? It

29:30

would depend, wouldn't it, on what you

29:33

thought these people in

29:35

power were actually doing and

29:38

who was pulling the strings for them. I

29:42

mean women come and go from centres

29:45

of power but then

29:47

they end up being monsters

29:49

like Imelda Marcos for example,

29:52

there's a woman everybody knows

29:55

and I watch with some

29:57

disappointment, I mean New

30:01

Zealand had three major heads

30:03

of government and

30:05

they're all gone and they're

30:07

all doing chores now for the UN

30:09

and this, that and the other. And

30:12

you think, but what difference did they make? Where

30:15

are we now? Have we got a

30:17

new way of organizing

30:20

people? A more humane way,

30:22

a gentler way, a more

30:24

respectful way? And I don't think we

30:26

do. And I'm

30:29

inverting on the culture generally. What about, I'm going

30:31

to throw a couple of other things at you,

30:33

which you may or may not be aware of.

30:36

Does the term WAP mean anything

30:38

to you, WAP? No,

30:41

not really. But it's a bit like

30:43

WOKE. I can't make much sense out

30:45

of that either. Well, let's come on

30:47

to WOKE. Let's do WAP first. WAP

30:49

was a song by Megan Thee Stallion

30:51

and Cardi B, I believe. And

30:54

it's an acronym for

30:56

Wet Ass Pussy and I think

30:58

it's a celebration of womanhood

31:02

and specifically the

31:04

joy of being a well-lubricated lady. And

31:06

it became controversial in the culture because

31:08

it was celebrated by some

31:10

as a sort of

31:13

expression of kind of liberated sense of

31:15

sexuality and the idea that, you

31:17

know, a vagina that might have been seen as

31:20

almost as sort of over aroused.

31:22

And therefore suspect was

31:24

now being seen as something positive. Although personally,

31:26

I don't remember any celebrations of dry vaginas.

31:29

I don't think that was ever a thing.

31:32

And then some people said, oh, well, this is

31:34

just actually the patriarchy in a different form. But

31:36

does the idea of a song that celebrates a

31:39

wet... Sorry, I can't believe I'm saying this.

31:41

I feel a bit embarrassed now. Does the

31:43

idea of celebrating a well-lubricated vagina in

31:46

song, does that seem like a positive?

31:49

It was a big moment in the culture. I

31:52

wonder why you think an ass is

31:54

a vagina. This is a

31:56

conversation we may need to have somewhere else. No,

31:58

no. Ass is just a... suffix like

32:01

it's in our yeah it is but

32:03

in that sense in the in the

32:05

idiom that I'm using as

32:07

is just a suffix that means kind

32:10

of very like you if I

32:12

said to you you're a stupid ass I wouldn't ever

32:14

say this germane but if I said

32:16

to someone oh you're a stupid ass piece of shit

32:19

it just means um I think

32:21

it just means a metonym for human well

32:25

I would choose to disagree with that

32:27

actually most of our casual

32:30

epithets are loaded

32:32

with meaning and

32:35

I wouldn't I would think that

32:37

was similar a wet ass to

32:39

me is a significant thing and

32:42

it's not necessarily that easy to have

32:45

a wet ass you

32:47

cannot always produce one when you want one

32:50

and you can't always want one

32:52

when you've accidentally produced one sex

32:54

is difficult it's tricky

32:57

and I think that

33:00

people are embarrassed now

33:02

more and more you're meant to know all

33:04

kinds of things that you don't know okay

33:06

now I think that's fair oh how

33:09

are you doing by the way did you you've got your

33:11

wine there and I'm just conscious you haven't touched

33:13

it I think I'd like another

33:15

coffee if that's allowed does

33:19

the name Andrew Tate mean anything to you no

33:22

okay I don't

33:24

think it does what about

33:26

the term manosphere meaning

33:28

the world of men so

33:30

basically in in um

33:33

in the increasingly virtual culture of

33:35

the internet and social

33:38

media there's various influences I kind

33:40

of online gurus and content

33:43

creators who've projected a sort

33:45

of man focused vision of the world and

33:47

I think if I can summarize it the

33:49

idea is that feminism

33:51

either went too far or was

33:53

fundamentally misconceived that the traditional gender

33:56

norms of the man as provider

34:00

the man as alpha

34:03

warrior that those reflect

34:05

an essential idea of how the

34:07

genders should interrelate and the

34:09

most prominent and controversial of these various gurus

34:12

of the manosphere. The manosphere is

34:14

the online world of men's rights

34:17

is Andrew Tate. So he's a very

34:19

controversial person in the culture

34:21

and it seems to reflect something

34:23

about maybe if I

34:25

was for the generous gloss on it, the

34:28

idea of men being slightly directionless and young

34:30

men in a climate

34:32

that's more influenced by feminism, at

34:34

least now than it was maybe 30

34:36

or 40 years ago, the idea is that

34:38

young men are confused and young men don't know

34:40

how they fit into the world. And

34:43

the idea of toxic masculinity, which

34:45

obviously is deplored appropriately, but that

34:47

it leaves them with no positive

34:50

idea of what it means to

34:52

be a man. And

34:54

so people like Andrew Tate step into the gap

34:56

and fill their heads with these kind of very

34:59

outdated notions of what manhood

35:01

is. So I suppose

35:03

I'm just, since you haven't heard of him,

35:05

it's maybe a moot point, but do you

35:07

recognize that as an issue in the culture

35:09

at all? Have you noticed that there's this

35:11

sort of resurgent, almost revanchist sort of men's

35:13

rights activism? Yes,

35:17

I think I do recognize that, but

35:19

I watch men a lot

35:22

because I wish women could learn some of

35:24

the things they know how to do. And

35:27

one of the things they know how to do is

35:30

to be clubbable, to be

35:32

together as an undemanding group

35:35

who give each other support by

35:38

meaningless activities like obscene

35:41

jokes or playing barbeds

35:43

or whatever. And

35:46

I wish women could learn that a

35:48

bit more because they tend to

35:50

be demanding of friendships. Tell me more,

35:52

tell me more, tell me more. There

35:55

are sometimes the real secret is to tell

35:57

me less, tell me less, tell me less.

36:00

Take care of me, make me laugh, tell

36:02

me a joke, let's run a

36:04

sweepstake. All those things men do. Okay,

36:07

my coffee's coming in. It's a good time for a

36:09

sip of wine if you're thinking of having one. Goodie.

36:12

I'm not instructing you to... I've already had

36:14

several, but you didn't see. I

36:16

must be piped in in a way that I can't see.

36:20

In contemporary academic discourse,

36:23

genders seem very much as a

36:25

construct, I think. There's

36:27

a view that... I don't know if

36:29

it's still fashionable. It definitely used to be that

36:32

there's no essential differences between men and

36:34

women. Everything is a result

36:36

of kind of acculturation and conditioning.

36:40

Is that your view, or do you think men and

36:42

women are fundamentally different? This

36:48

is a bit hard, this question, I

36:50

think, because there

36:53

are some things about being a woman that

36:57

do not transfer. You

36:59

might think that you've got the wrong body,

37:03

but you can't really have the wrong body.

37:06

I mean, I've tried very hard not to

37:08

talk on this issue because I

37:10

realized that there's a whole

37:12

body of thought now which wants to

37:14

erect gender into something

37:19

which is given to the person.

37:22

Whereas in my mind, you're born with a

37:25

sex, you can't opt out

37:27

of it. And when you

37:29

come into maturity, sexual

37:31

maturity, it'll be brought home to you.

37:33

I mean, menstruation's no fun. You

37:36

don't really terribly want to do it, but you do

37:38

it because you don't have very

37:40

much choice. And if you don't do it, you

37:42

get nervous because something's gone wrong. And

37:44

I think there you are

37:47

inventing manhood

37:49

as a gender, an imaginary

37:51

thing, a construct. And

37:54

on the other hand, you've got

37:56

this sex thing that is going to grab you.

37:58

It'll grab you at any time. certain

38:00

stages in your life it will

38:02

grab you when you get diseases

38:05

that are connected to your genes

38:07

and your construction and you

38:09

realize that sex is going to be there. And

38:12

to me it's really important

38:14

that our earth is populated

38:16

because of sexual reproduction. So

38:19

my feeling about I don't say

38:21

anything in the discourse because

38:24

I'm listening to what the people who are

38:27

inventing it now and building it now

38:29

are saying about it. But

38:32

I don't want to intervene. I think being

38:35

80, how old am I, 84? How

38:38

much shut up is my feeling. I

38:42

mean there's a lot of different things to think

38:44

about in what you just said. I mean I

38:46

do think it's worth reflecting that your

38:49

views on the trans issue

38:51

have been extremely controversial

38:54

and I guess I could say divisive and

38:56

for some people me even speaking to you

38:59

would be a derelict. But I didn't utter

39:01

them though. I didn't utter them. I'm

39:03

told I'm transphobic. I didn't

39:06

say I was transphobic. I'm

39:10

perfectly happy to accept people

39:12

who think they're transgender.

39:15

I can't see why you wouldn't say you were

39:17

transgender if you felt it. But

39:20

it's a matter of feeling it rather than it

39:22

being a condition of

39:24

human reproduction. It isn't. I

39:27

think the quote that gets recycled a lot is

39:30

in 2015 you said just because you lop off your

39:32

penis and wear a dress doesn't make you a fucking

39:34

woman. That

39:38

got you into hot water. Who says I said

39:40

that? I don't recall saying that. It

39:42

was in 2015 to Rebecca Root, a

39:45

trans comedian. It wasn't

39:47

perhaps a considered opinion. I've never met Rebecca

39:49

Root. I don't think I ever said that.

39:52

You won't find it in my papers anywhere.

39:55

They're all at Melbourne University if you want to look. But

39:57

I don't think I said that. been

40:00

a context, I don't recall

40:02

the context either. There

40:08

was a time when I used to

40:10

say to my workers in the rainforest

40:13

that we

40:16

needed to be more Aboriginal and

40:19

they would say to me, they thought they

40:21

were quite Aboriginal enough, thank you very much.

40:24

And then so we had to

40:26

discover could we be Aboriginal,

40:29

could we put up our hands? Self-identifying

40:31

is supposed to be the name of

40:33

the game. So we are self-identifying. I'm

40:35

Aboriginal. Oh no you're

40:37

not. Because one

40:39

of the things you think you have is

40:41

the right to your appellation, the right to

40:43

the thing you are. And if

40:45

somebody tells you that you're

40:47

not English or

40:50

not human or not,

40:52

you're going to say, yes

40:56

I am if you do

40:58

identify that way. But it's

41:00

too complicated, this self-identifying thing,

41:03

half of us are misled

41:05

about our identity. It's

41:08

a really evanetent thing, your

41:10

identity. When you get old, believe

41:12

me, your identity changes big time.

41:15

When you turn into the person nobody listens

41:17

to and you have to learn it. It's

41:20

hard. And then you

41:22

have to find ways of getting people to let

41:24

you get your view

41:27

out, your statement finished. And

41:30

if they've already decided you're as mad as

41:32

a meat axe, it won't

41:34

do, it won't happen. I

41:37

mean I suppose there's a division in the culture now that

41:40

it's seen that the left is maybe

41:42

more censorious and less tolerant

41:44

of dissenting opinions and more

41:47

opposed to free speech. I

41:49

mean you yourself were,

41:52

well you weren't, I don't know if the term would be no

41:55

platform, but you were invited to speak

41:57

at Cardiff University, that's right isn't it? And

42:00

then there was a small protest or

42:03

some people decided that you shouldn't come,

42:05

that it was because of your views. The

42:07

university didn't let it happen. There

42:10

was a small group of people who had posters,

42:13

I think. And

42:16

when it came to the point

42:18

of not allowing me to speak,

42:20

the university cleared the protesters away

42:22

and I spoke. But I'm on

42:25

their side. If they want me to be

42:27

shut up, then fine, go for it. I

42:30

don't think anyone's got a God-given right to

42:32

speak. That sort

42:34

of thing doesn't worry

42:36

me terribly. I mean, you can

42:38

always speak somewhere else. You've

42:41

always got another place to make a

42:43

noise. It doesn't

42:45

frighten me terribly. I

42:47

expect students to rebel. I

42:51

expect them to object. And

42:53

I expect as a teacher to have to play

42:56

my corner, to actually

42:58

have to deal with them and

43:00

not dismiss them. Probably

43:03

an unsatisfactory answer, but it

43:05

doesn't worry me, this notion that

43:08

people will shout me down, shout

43:10

away. Well,

43:12

that sounds like a healthy attitude. So

43:16

basically, you mentioned your age,

43:18

84, so I can say

43:20

it and hopefully that's not rude. What

43:24

preoccupies you? Yeah, but why would you think

43:26

it was? I don't

43:28

know. That's convention, isn't it? I interviewed Joan Collins

43:30

a few weeks ago and she

43:32

didn't want me to say how old she was. But either

43:34

way, I know that some older women

43:37

and people, perhaps I think men are all right

43:39

with it, don't like you to say their age.

43:42

You must be aware of that, surely. Yeah,

43:44

but I'm not worried about it at all. I was

43:46

wondering if you asked Joan whether her husband was gay.

43:50

What makes you say that? Just

43:52

curiosity, really. Right.

43:55

There's reason for asking your question. I

43:57

mean, perhaps I'm being

43:59

a little bit positive. But why would

44:01

you think he might be gay? Well,

44:03

anybody might be gay. Okay. You're

44:06

not going to be pinned down on this. I

44:08

think I know how your mind works, and

44:10

you're thinking because she's 90 and

44:12

he's 50-something, that why

44:15

would a straight man be interested in a woman

44:17

who is so much older? Is that what you're

44:19

thinking? Not quite, no. I know lots of men

44:21

who have been interested in women a lot older. I

44:25

could include myself. Okay.

44:28

What's the biggest age gap in any relationship

44:30

that you've been in? I

44:34

can't remember. You opened the door to that

44:36

question, and I went through it. Yes,

44:38

I realised that. I'm sorry. I

44:40

probably shouldn't have. Let me see.

44:44

I have to be careful now because they're all bloody

44:46

dead. Hi,

45:16

I'm Louis Theroux, and you're listening to the

45:18

Louis Theroux Podcast. And now, back

45:20

to my conversation with Jermaine Gray. I

45:28

should probably mention Me Too, having

45:32

been such a big cultural moment, and I

45:35

think you were a bit of a Me Too skeptic. Is

45:37

that fair? I wasn't

45:39

really a skeptic. I

45:42

just kind of thought, oh, for

45:44

Christ's sake, here we are. We've

45:46

got victims of sexual assault.

45:50

And then we've got a whole bunch of people saying, Me

45:52

Too, as if it was something to be proud of. Well,

45:54

butter that for luck. It isn't. And

45:57

we should be better at fighting it off when it

45:59

happens. I just don't

46:02

like the idea of saying I too

46:05

am a victim. And

46:07

you could argue when people

46:10

are sexually molesting you, how

46:14

much have you got to do with the fact that

46:16

you're in a situation in which you can be molested?

46:19

If you're in a hotel room in

46:22

Hollywood, where's

46:24

the surprise when the man

46:26

who's pouring the drinks tries to get it

46:28

on? None. That

46:31

sounds a bit like victim blaming. Oh,

46:34

ho, ho, ho. Well, please don't

46:37

think that because I know

46:39

what it is to be a victim and

46:41

I don't blame the victim, especially

46:44

when the victim is young,

46:46

especially when the victim is inexperienced

46:48

and or on job experience or

46:50

whatever. It's just the whole

46:52

idea of I'm one, it happened to me.

46:56

I'm going to invite you on to another controversial area because

46:58

you wrote a book as well, a

47:00

pamphlet really called On Rape. And one

47:03

of the things you've said is I think you've

47:05

sort of suggested that forgive

47:07

me if I'm misquoting, but the

47:10

idea that rape isn't the worst thing that can happen

47:12

to a woman and that maybe it's

47:14

been sort of freighted with too much

47:17

kind of meaning like it's made out to be

47:19

worse than it is. Is that sort of what

47:21

you've said more or less? And is there anything

47:23

you want to expand

47:26

on about that? I

47:28

wouldn't say it like that. But what I would

47:31

say is if you

47:33

believe because

47:35

you've had a pretty unsatisfactory

47:38

episode of failed intimacy,

47:40

if you

47:42

believe that you're ruined, you

47:45

are devalued, you are rubbish,

47:48

you are to be jettisoned,

47:50

then that's your problem, not

47:53

the rape itself. Half

47:55

the time when people have sex, one person thinks

47:58

it's one thing and the other person it's

48:00

the lover and I don't think

48:02

you've got the right then to go racing down

48:04

the street asking them and shoot them because

48:06

they were wrong and when

48:09

you tell me that the man who raped

48:11

me when I was 19 should

48:14

have gone to jail for 10 years

48:16

which is what the tariff was I

48:20

can't accept that at

48:22

all I mean when it happened

48:24

to me I

48:27

didn't even ask about his name and I

48:29

realized to this day I don't know what

48:32

his name was I

48:35

don't want to go there if it's some in

48:37

any way painful I don't really want to talk about

48:40

it at length it was rather funny when I've

48:42

written a piece on rape for the Guardian I

48:44

got some snotty letters saying

48:47

that I didn't know of what rape

48:49

was that I was clearly ignorant

48:52

that I had said that it

48:54

was this devastating blighty-blight etc etc

48:57

and so then I wrote the article and said

48:59

well you may not realize this but I do

49:01

know what rape is and

49:03

it was unpleasant

49:06

it was horrible so I

49:08

didn't want to kill him in fact I was

49:11

really worried that he was mad

49:13

I thought any man who thinks

49:15

he can have intimacy with a

49:17

woman like this is mad and

49:20

I wanted to help him because

49:22

he kept saying what did you

49:24

say help me help me he's helped

49:26

me and as for sending him to

49:28

jail for 10 years I

49:31

would have been mortified if

49:33

that has happened actually mortified

49:37

they never caught the man who did it what

49:39

to me yes I never complained

49:43

I was working as a housekeeper for

49:46

some young man who had a flat in

49:48

some Kilda Road and

49:50

I was staggering in the street in

49:52

shock and a car

49:54

came and

49:56

in the car was a man and a

49:58

woman and I knew that I could

50:01

ask them to help me. I

50:04

kind of knew that if I asked a car full of rugby players to

50:07

help me, it would have been a mistake. So

50:10

I asked them and they took me back

50:12

home. And then the guys who took

50:14

me to the party came home. And

50:17

then there was a whole other story because

50:19

they decided what to do about this bloke.

50:22

Because they knew about him. They had problems

50:25

to do with him for a long time. So

50:27

they just told him

50:30

that if he went to Torquay or

50:32

to Hotham, they would kill him. And

50:36

he believed him. I never saw him again.

50:41

I would like to talk just for a minute, if

50:43

we can, about your upbringing. You've written

50:46

about it extensively, and in particular in your book,

50:48

Daddy, We Hardly Knew You. Tell

50:51

me a little bit about the household growing up. I

50:53

know you had a couple of siblings. You've said that

50:55

your mum could be quite

50:58

brutal. She hit you with a stick.

51:00

Your dad was a distant, enigmatic figure.

51:02

He'd come back from war, kept to

51:04

himself. I think he perhaps

51:07

had relationships outside the home, maybe with

51:09

his secretary. But what would you

51:11

like to say about that that might shed light on people's

51:13

understanding of you? Well,

51:16

remember that this is not just my

51:18

story. It's my sisters and my brothers,

51:20

and they're both around. I

51:25

had a different time because my

51:27

father was away at the wall. My

51:30

little sister was conceived when he came back,

51:33

but it was a terrible time. I don't know

51:35

what my mother had been up to. I was

51:37

a child. I just didn't

51:39

know. Other people would have told

51:41

me, but I didn't ask them. She'd

51:43

had a relationship with a soldier, or what was it?

51:46

She had some sort of relationship with someone we think,

51:48

right? I don't

51:50

know that she had a relationship with anybody. I

51:53

certainly didn't see any such thing. I

51:57

do remember that one night she made... lobster

52:00

firmidore for someone. And

52:03

she gave me some before I was put

52:05

to bed early. And

52:08

I vomited all night long. She

52:11

nearly lost me, which

52:13

probably would have been a stroke of luck. But

52:17

I mean, she was different with

52:20

my sister and different again with my brother,

52:22

what's to say? And I

52:24

ran away. Started a

52:26

lifetime career of being a bolter.

52:31

Why did you run away? I

52:34

was just sick of being victimized

52:36

and kicked around. And

52:39

there was a really terrible moment

52:42

when I asked if

52:45

I could have a banana. And

52:48

she said, they're for my children. So

52:52

I went. I wasn't a child. Wasn't

52:55

her child, I could go. And I

52:58

went. And I went and

53:00

went and went and went and kept on going. She

53:06

was young when she married my father. And then

53:09

there was a war. I mean, it was a

53:12

big disappointment. Then he came back and

53:14

I remember we went to Spencer Street

53:17

to meet him and

53:20

we couldn't recognize him. We

53:22

went up and down the station looking in

53:25

every face. And

53:27

then we realized that an old man standing

53:32

against a stanchion on the

53:34

station was my mother's husband.

53:37

And she put him under her arm and took him home. And

53:42

do you suppose they were happy people? As

53:44

you were growing up, did they seem as

53:46

though they loved one another? To what extent

53:48

were they kind of imprisoned within gender norms

53:50

that prevailed at the time? And

53:52

how all of that trickled down to you? So

53:55

when Dad went to the office every day,

53:58

he never had a chance to be a child. worked an afternoon

54:01

in his life. He would go to

54:03

the CTA, the Commercial Travellers Association, and

54:06

he was the principal referee for all the

54:08

card games and he was the

54:10

referee for, oh what's his name,

54:12

the Billions player, Lindrum, Walter Lindrum.

54:16

So that was pretty full at life, so

54:18

he had no complaints there. He

54:20

would have every morning in his car, leaving

54:23

mum at home without a car, of course,

54:26

which was part of the course. I

54:28

think she made his life pretty difficult,

54:33

but I didn't make a

54:35

judgment of that sort. I was a child, I

54:37

don't think I could have done. He

54:39

sold advertising space in the

54:41

newspaper, is that right? Advertising Manager,

54:43

I think, was his title, and

54:47

he mostly sold advertising space

54:49

to the Schmutter merchants

54:51

on Flinders Lane. Taylors, do

54:53

you mean? Schmutter is

54:56

Yiddish for rags, the

54:59

rag trade, that's what it's called, and

55:01

I believed that I was Jewish.

55:05

Why did you believe you were Jewish? Because

55:08

my father's mother was called

55:11

Emma Rachel Wise, and

55:13

I thought Rachel Wise,

55:15

Jewish name, Jewish

55:17

matriarch, here we go, I'm Jewish,

55:20

and my ambition when I was little was

55:22

not to be part of the Holocaust. I

55:25

didn't want to be guilty, so I

55:29

learnt Yiddish, I can still sing the

55:31

Hatikva, I joined the

55:33

Chabima players. What is the Hatikva?

55:37

Hatikva. Hatikva,

55:39

Hatikva, Lefeschudi,

55:42

Hormiya. I

55:45

can still sing it, I just can't remember what it is. That's

55:48

life for you. Who were

55:50

your heroes? I mean, it was a suburban existence,

55:52

and then you became obviously

55:54

an eminent best-selling author

55:56

and intellectual, but what was the launch pad

55:58

for that? What were you reading?

56:00

What did you claim as your own? What

56:02

pieces of culture spoke to you clearly

56:05

and distinctly? Well, when I

56:07

was 12, I read all of Dickens. I

56:10

would sit on the train and

56:13

read and carry it with me everywhere till

56:15

it was read, and then get another one and

56:17

another one and read them all. I

56:20

mainly read whatever books I could get my hands on.

56:22

We didn't have very many. In

56:25

fact, we had all the free books given

56:27

away by the Herald and Weekly Times. And

56:30

Daddy would bring those all and stack

56:32

them in the little walnut bookshelf about

56:34

this high. That was our library. But

56:38

then I had membership of the Brighton Public

56:40

Library. I used to ride my bike there

56:42

and get a book. And I

56:44

used to always pick the book according

56:46

to its mass. It'd be

56:49

a big, fat book because it had to

56:51

last. When you

56:53

went off to university, you fell in with a

56:56

bohemian set. Is that fair? And

56:59

correct me if I'm wrong, Clive James is

57:01

there in the mix somewhere. Various

57:03

glamorous, artistic and interesting

57:06

people. This

57:08

would have been what, the late 50s, early 60s? Did

57:11

it feel as though you were part of a kind

57:13

of emerging cultural

57:16

movement? First

57:19

of all, I went to

57:21

Melbourne University on a teacher's college

57:23

scholarship. And

57:25

then I had to go and teach.

57:29

And then I realised I had to

57:31

teach something called civics. And

57:34

I said, I can't teach that. It's nonsense.

57:38

And I ran away.

57:40

I did what I used to do. I

57:42

ran away. So I didn't

57:44

meet Clive James till I was in Sydney. And

57:48

so then we were part of

57:50

what would have been an anarchist cell,

57:53

which I loved. What

57:55

did it mean being an anarchist? Well

57:58

it meant, funny it

58:00

interesting at the moment because people are

58:02

talking about authoritarian government. I

58:04

was listening to a discussion of politics

58:07

in Gaza, I think,

58:10

about how the tendency now

58:12

is towards authoritarianism. We

58:14

existed to oppose authoritarianism,

58:17

but however we were

58:19

to be governed and marshalled and

58:21

pushed about, it had

58:23

to be rational rather than

58:25

religious or or

58:28

even political in that sense. And

58:31

we did read Bakunin and

58:34

other anarchists from Russia.

58:37

Did you? Do you still think of

58:39

yourself as an anarchist? Well,

58:42

I'm not in favour of people having

58:44

power over other people for no good

58:46

reason. But do

58:48

I think of myself as an anarchist? Yeah,

58:50

probably still a bit. So

58:53

how did you wind up at Cambridge and what was

58:55

that like? I had a

58:58

job at Sydney University and

59:02

I made the application for a

59:04

Commonwealth scholarship and got one.

59:06

And so off I went to Cambridge.

59:09

And when you were at Cambridge, one of the striking

59:11

things was that you got involved in the comedy set

59:14

and you were part of the Footlights. I was

59:16

the first female member of the Footlights.

59:19

I actually got into the Footlights

59:21

by doing a skit based

59:24

on a Barry Humphries joke, which

59:27

I never acknowledged. Wicked

59:29

of me. What was the joke? It

59:32

was about how you get an Australian

59:34

accent and it involved an egg timer.

59:37

I mean, egg slicer, I should say. And

59:39

it was quite funny. And was it

59:41

Eric Idle that was part of... I mean, a lot

59:43

of the the Monty Python people were there at that

59:45

time. Is that right? I wasn't the same time.

59:48

They were a year before me. I was

59:50

the next year. But more

59:52

the goodies. I noticed

59:54

Australia watches the goodies. That

59:57

makes me laugh. That's amazing. We haven't watched it

59:59

in England. for 40

1:00:01

years. Well they still watch the Goodies in Australia

1:00:03

to this day. Yeah they're

1:00:05

on every day I think yeah.

1:00:07

I used to love the Goodies. And that

1:00:09

makes me the farthest. For our younger audience we

1:00:11

should explain who they were. It was Bill Oddie,

1:00:13

Graham Garden and Timbruck Taylor. They

1:00:16

sort of played these sort of well it

1:00:19

was almost like they were boys in men's

1:00:21

bodies living together and getting into adventures. Was

1:00:23

that more or less what it was? Very

1:00:25

Cambridge, very

1:00:27

public school. And

1:00:30

then you got you actually worked in TV

1:00:33

comedy on a show called Nice Time

1:00:35

which you co-hosted with Kenny Everett. Which

1:00:38

is still up on YouTube for those who

1:00:40

are curious and it's quite funny.

1:00:42

It still holds up. It's never. Pretty funny in

1:00:45

parts. I mean it's like a lot of old

1:00:47

television the grammar is a bit weird

1:00:49

and skits that might be funny at 20 or

1:00:51

30 seconds length seem to last

1:00:53

forever but I mean people may not

1:00:55

even remember Kenny Everett now but he

1:00:58

was very famous throughout the 70s

1:01:00

and 80s and he was gay and he

1:01:03

was again someone I used to love

1:01:06

watching growing up. Were you aware

1:01:08

that Kenny was gay and were you conscious that that

1:01:10

was might be difficult for

1:01:12

him in that cultural setting in that society

1:01:14

in that time? Not as long as it

1:01:16

was show business. Really? Just

1:01:19

about everybody in show business was gay. He

1:01:22

was pretty safe I think.

1:01:25

I knew him pretty well and I knew

1:01:27

all about that and I knew who the

1:01:29

boyfriend was and I was glad for him.

1:01:32

Before he met the boyfriend he married a

1:01:34

woman who was a jazz singer. I didn't

1:01:37

know that. But he had a

1:01:39

few boyfriends who had an eye on the main

1:01:41

chance but I think we all

1:01:43

did. I mean I got all tangled up

1:01:45

with George Best. That was pretty

1:01:47

funny. In what way? What

1:01:51

do you want me to say? Romantically.

1:01:53

In a pretty obvious

1:01:55

way. He was a good looking man. I

1:01:58

was very down on him. He

1:02:00

was a fucking good footballer as well. But

1:02:03

I mean what happened there is

1:02:06

that I used to ignore George.

1:02:08

We all drank in the Brown Ball,

1:02:11

which is a hotel near Granada. And

1:02:14

the footballers would come after

1:02:16

the game. And so one

1:02:19

night I was there, sucking back

1:02:21

the suds, and

1:02:23

he said to me, you don't

1:02:25

fancy me do you? I

1:02:29

said George for Christ's sake. There's

1:02:32

not a woman in this room who doesn't fancy you. What

1:02:35

do you think I am? A

1:02:37

monster, abnormal. Not

1:02:40

that it made a difference. I did

1:02:42

not immediately leap upon him or vice

1:02:44

versa. So I thought

1:02:46

you'd revealed that you had a fling with George Best and

1:02:48

now it sounds like you're announcing that you did not have

1:02:51

a fling with him. Is that what we're

1:02:53

going with? No, I've never announced that I had

1:02:55

a fling with George Best. No, I

1:02:57

thought you said you got tangled up with him and I think

1:02:59

I got two and two and made

1:03:01

sixteen out of it. Yes. Hi,

1:03:29

me again. Just

1:03:32

to remind you, you're listening to the Louis

1:03:34

Theroux podcast. And now back to

1:03:37

my conversation with Germaine Greer. I'm

1:03:42

conscious of not taking up too much of your time. So

1:03:45

maybe we should talk a little bit about

1:03:47

just how you feel about feminism.

1:03:49

I'm assuming that you still view

1:03:52

yourself as a feminist. Going

1:03:55

forward, do you sort of survey the picture and

1:03:57

see other people who you think are...

1:04:00

carrying the torch in any way or you're

1:04:03

not that interested. How do you see the scene at

1:04:05

the moment? Well,

1:04:08

let's see. It's

1:04:10

really interesting to

1:04:12

see in a place like

1:04:15

Arcea, in aged care, what

1:04:18

these older women are like. They

1:04:21

have their own style,

1:04:23

their own fashion, their

1:04:25

own way of reacting. They're

1:04:29

generally fairly fit, which I'm happy to see.

1:04:32

It's still there, but what's going

1:04:34

on at the moment, and I'm not sure

1:04:36

if it's really going to take off, is

1:04:39

that feminism is beginning to

1:04:41

reappear in the schedules of

1:04:43

talks and so forth. And

1:04:46

it looks as if feminism

1:04:49

is going to resist the

1:04:51

attempt to turn it into single-sex

1:04:54

marriage and sexual

1:04:56

identity and so on. These

1:04:59

are women who've lived their lives as well as

1:05:01

they could, have been independent,

1:05:03

have been through the marriage mill,

1:05:06

come out the other side, watching

1:05:09

their daughters go through the same

1:05:11

thing. I'm really touched to

1:05:13

see how many of the

1:05:16

women in aged care here

1:05:18

are visited all the

1:05:21

time by their daughters. It is

1:05:23

wonderful to see. So the last

1:05:25

thing I do is think, you

1:05:28

know, oh, I'm 84 and so

1:05:30

now it's all over. It's

1:05:33

snaked, but it is changing. There's

1:05:35

a change coming and

1:05:37

there's going to be a resistance

1:05:40

to this peculiar sexless

1:05:43

or sexological

1:05:45

or whatever it is that's going

1:05:47

on. I mean, the women have

1:05:49

kind of taken aback by the

1:05:52

noisiness of the

1:05:54

transgender movement, by the staging

1:05:57

of it. And I think the one

1:05:59

thing I said that got me

1:06:01

a bit of immediate

1:06:03

reaction. I said something about how

1:06:05

seeing their version of womanhood,

1:06:08

it drives me as hostile

1:06:10

and caricaturish. I'm

1:06:13

going to push back on that, Jamin, because I think that

1:06:15

actually part of how female

1:06:18

gender is expressed is

1:06:21

caricaturish and hostile to women. You

1:06:23

could make the argument that false

1:06:25

eyelashes, Botox in the lips,

1:06:28

plastic surgery all over the place, that

1:06:31

that's not only is it not

1:06:33

unique to people who are

1:06:35

trans, but actually that's kind of epidemic

1:06:38

across the culture. It's part

1:06:40

of Instagram culture. And do

1:06:42

you take the point that it's been sort of been over,

1:06:44

whether it's because of capitalism or some other reason, to

1:06:47

a great extent, we still live in

1:06:49

that sort of slightly step but wives'

1:06:51

esque culture? Well, it

1:06:54

is very step and wives' esque. I

1:06:56

don't think that's spontaneous expression

1:06:58

of womanhood. I think

1:07:00

that's pretty peculiar

1:07:03

stuff, really. I

1:07:05

think it is actually a parody,

1:07:08

a grotesque parody, and

1:07:11

mainly driven

1:07:13

by hostility. And

1:07:16

part of the background of what we've been talking

1:07:18

about all night is an enduring

1:07:22

hostility to women, so

1:07:25

that even men who are very

1:07:28

susceptible to this kind of gross

1:07:31

parody will go for

1:07:33

it, will react to it. Don't

1:07:35

ask yourself what happens next. I'm

1:07:38

going to throw a quote at you. Women have

1:07:40

very little idea how much men hate them. Do

1:07:45

you think that's still true? Yes,

1:07:48

I do think it's still true. It's

1:07:51

not so much that men hate them a

1:07:53

lot. It's

1:07:55

that all men hate all women

1:07:57

some of the time. the

1:08:00

wrong place at the wrong time, it can cost

1:08:02

you your life. You don't really know what

1:08:05

the suppressed rage with women is,

1:08:08

but it's there. Well, I

1:08:10

think we've arrived at a good

1:08:12

point, suitably dark and troubling and

1:08:14

uncompromising. I thought

1:08:17

it might be funny if I tried to explain, if

1:08:19

a man explained feminism to you, that

1:08:21

would have been a meta-choke. Go on. No,

1:08:25

I can't do it. Do it. Do it. It's

1:08:29

not funny anymore. It's just

1:08:31

human rights for women, isn't

1:08:34

it? Is it

1:08:36

equal rights for women? How would you

1:08:38

define it? We should have started here. Well,

1:08:42

feminism, in my notion,

1:08:45

means identifying with women. Can

1:08:48

a man be a feminist? Yes,

1:08:50

but they're not often. They

1:08:53

tend to think they are, and they tend to

1:08:55

feel as if they could take it over and

1:08:58

do it better. That's the next thing. But

1:09:01

feminism, as far as I'm concerned, is

1:09:03

looking at every question that comes up

1:09:06

from the point of view of what does this

1:09:08

do for women? Does it do them ill,

1:09:12

or does it assist them in what

1:09:14

is already a difficult life

1:09:16

path to take? What

1:09:19

about this idea that feminism is obsolete?

1:09:21

You hear this quite a bit now, that, oh,

1:09:23

well, men are at the commanding

1:09:26

heights of all the industries and whatnot,

1:09:28

and actually we don't really need it

1:09:30

anymore. In fact, by some metrics, men

1:09:32

are killing themselves more, dying younger,

1:09:35

more depressed, more anxious, and actually we need

1:09:37

to be thinking about the men a bit

1:09:39

more. Well,

1:09:43

I could agree with all of that, except

1:09:46

in my experience, men think about themselves a

1:09:48

lot. I

1:09:52

could keep going for another three hours. That

1:09:55

sounded almost like a double entendre. I

1:09:57

feel as though we reached a good conclusion, which

1:09:59

was... to do with the

1:10:01

still work to do really and.

1:10:05

How are you doing germane i hope that was

1:10:08

okay for you and conscious is not ideal in

1:10:10

the sense that you're five ten thousand ten thousand

1:10:12

miles away but i really enjoyed the chat i

1:10:14

feel that you know very privileged that i got

1:10:16

to talk to you and maybe one day. We

1:10:19

can meet in the flesh but until then

1:10:21

this will have to do. Well

1:10:23

i've enjoyed it thank you know

1:10:26

i've got to go away and think about stuff that i

1:10:28

haven't thought about for ages. Oh have i dredged up

1:10:30

a lot of stuff about ken

1:10:32

evert and george best. Those

1:10:35

are the fun bits. Those are the

1:10:38

fun bits. So

1:10:57

there we are germane greer and

1:11:01

i think you'll agree it was interesting and

1:11:03

times maybe. Well

1:11:07

i was going to say close to the line i probably a bit over

1:11:09

the line in the sense that. I

1:11:14

imagine there will be people who are offended there was content

1:11:16

that was controversial and what was striking was. That

1:11:19

at one

1:11:21

moment she said i'm going to stop talking about

1:11:24

subjects to do with the trans community and that felt well

1:11:27

i was thinking like yeah i think that's probably a good

1:11:29

shout. And

1:11:32

then couldn't seem to help herself

1:11:34

and at times clearly that served her her willingness to be

1:11:36

unafraid and to go straight to. The

1:11:42

subject that people don't want to speak about or don't

1:11:44

want her to speak about and i understand that some

1:11:46

people will be offended some listeners will be those aren't

1:11:48

the positions of the podcast i think we have a

1:11:50

podcast where. We're

1:11:52

open to having guests with whom we don't align in

1:11:55

every room. respect.

1:12:02

A clarification about Germaine's

1:12:05

comment when she characterized the

1:12:09

trans community, I said that

1:12:11

she put it to Rebecca Root, a

1:12:13

trans comedian. In fact, and Germaine said

1:12:15

I never said that. In fact, it

1:12:17

seems Germaine never said it

1:12:19

to Root. Sources do

1:12:21

show it was put to Root as a

1:12:24

statement from Germaine by

1:12:26

Victoria Derbyshire on her show. I

1:12:30

mean, there's more that I could unpack. When I

1:12:32

talk about WAP and

1:12:35

the epithets wet ass applied

1:12:38

to pussy, I

1:12:41

think I've listened to it a couple of times. I

1:12:43

think we're at loggerheads. I think she takes ass to

1:12:46

mean the female genitalia. And

1:12:50

the thing she says after that about, well, it's

1:12:52

quite hard to get a wet ass sometimes. And

1:12:54

sometimes you don't want a wet ass. I think

1:12:56

she's talking about female arousal.

1:12:58

That's the best sense I could make of it because

1:13:01

I can't think of many contexts in which people go

1:13:03

around thinking like, oh, I wish I had a wet

1:13:05

ass and I can't get one right now. Right.

1:13:09

Is that making sense to you at

1:13:11

home? Either way, maybe that's

1:13:13

what I need. That was part of my journey

1:13:15

fate had for me was that I needed to

1:13:17

explain in cringe making detail,

1:13:20

Megan Thee Stallion lyrics to

1:13:22

an icon of second wave feminism.

1:13:24

I deserved that. It

1:13:27

was even more awkward than it sounded. A documentary

1:13:31

exists we can put this in the

1:13:33

show notes called Town Bloody Hall, where

1:13:35

you can see Germaine

1:13:37

very much in her pomp as a sort of

1:13:39

statuesque and deeply impressive figure

1:13:43

at this Town Hall event where feminism

1:13:45

is being discussed with

1:13:47

Norman Mailer, the American literary lion and

1:13:50

it all slightly kicks off and there's

1:13:52

various leading feminist figures

1:13:54

all slightly talking across purposes. And

1:13:57

I think it's made by D.A.

1:14:01

Pennebaker. And

1:14:03

her appearance is on some of these amazing

1:14:05

old comedy shows, including the

1:14:07

one with Kenny Everett, you can still find

1:14:09

on YouTube, in which she

1:14:11

acquits herself as like a comedy professional.

1:14:15

What else can we say? Like, you

1:14:18

know, she's an older woman, she won't be with us forever. You

1:14:21

know, it's been a kind of a cozy space, the

1:14:25

sort of the Louis Theroux podcast space. Like,

1:14:27

you know, there's moments of grit, and there's

1:14:29

certainly, we like to get into subjects that

1:14:31

have some heft, some seriousness,

1:14:34

some conflict. I feel

1:14:36

like this is a new bar for us.

1:14:38

I'd rather have this be more interesting and

1:14:40

have more moments of grit, even at the

1:14:42

risk of it feeling

1:14:44

uncomfortable at times, rather

1:14:46

than have everything kind of planned it out. Former

1:14:50

podcast guest, Nick Cave,

1:14:52

talks on this subject as well. I refer you to

1:14:54

that episode. He didn't want everything

1:14:57

put through a sieve of, what

1:14:59

did he say? Ideological rectitude. It

1:15:01

wasn't that, but everything blended out.

1:15:03

He doesn't sound like that. But

1:15:05

I only have one

1:15:08

Australian accent. And it's the

1:15:10

one I have. You

1:15:12

know, if we've got Australian fans, I probably

1:15:14

shouldn't be doing a bad Australian accent. If

1:15:18

you've been affected by sexual violence

1:15:20

or any of the issues raised

1:15:23

in this episode, Spotify do

1:15:25

have a web site for information

1:15:27

and resources. Visit spotify.com/resources. Credits

1:15:32

produced by Millie Chu. The assistant producer

1:15:35

was Maan Al-Yazari. The production manager was

1:15:37

Francesca Bassett. And the executive producer was

1:15:39

Aaron Fellas. The music in this series

1:15:42

was by Miguel de Oliveira. This

1:15:44

is a MIND HOUSE production for Spotify.