The Female Eunuch

The Female Eunuch presents radical feminism and sexual liberation as means of accomplishing equality. This theme is not only one of Greer’s main arguments, but also the proposed solution to the problem of female castration. Radical feminism in the scope of this work is a subcategory of second-wave feminism and is in many ways a response to the previous generation of feminists. Greer justifies her positioning as a radical feminist because she believes that the first wave of feminism has not accomplished nearly enough:

The old suffragettes, who served their prison term and lived on through the years of gradual admission of women into professions which they declined to follow, into parliamentary freedoms which they declined to exercise, into academies which they used more and more as shops where they could take out degrees while waiting to get married, have seen their spirit revive in younger women with a new and vital cast (13).

Sociopolitical movements like feminism are dynamic, and their success necessitates regular reevaluation of ideologies as systems change over time; therefore, a call to radicalization at the beginning of the second wave of feminism serves to establish a new set of goals not imagined by previous feminists.