Professor Germaine Greer lectures at Dauntsey's

On Friday 5th February, Dauntsey's was delighted to welcome Professor Germaine Greer as guest speaker on the Mercers' Lecture programme. At 7.30pm, an audience of over 700, comprising pupils, parents, staff and the general public, gathered in the Memorial Hall to hear Germaine Greer deliver a lecture entitled 'Forty Years of Fun with Feminism'. Prof Greer spoke for an hour and gave a stimulating, at times amusing and characteristically controversial, lecture covering many aspects of Feminism. She spoke in historical and current day terms about the role of contraception, and abortion, in providing women with freedom of choice, and focussed too on sexual liberation and the need for mothers to receive better support from the state. There were a number of thoughtful and interesting questions from members of the audience after the lecture, and the evening was deemed a great success.

Professor Greer's lecture followed an afternoon of discussion with Sixth Form pupils who are members of the Head Master's Essay Society. This earlier discussion focused initially on the art of writing a good essay but the session's emphasis gradually moved on to the concerns that she considers very important. She gave the female members advice on how not to be oppressed in the workplace; she gave them superb advice on how to successfully manage men in the future and, most importantly, she pressed for the urgent requirement to alter dramatically men's cultural behaviour. She wondered what had been accomplished by Feminism when women were still left with the dual responsibilities of having to work and bring up children with little tangible respect or reward from the other half (while he still participates in his full round of recreational activities!). She felt it was the duty of the Third Wave of Feminism to address these issues facing our society today.

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