I would recommend the book to anyone who feels, as I did that I'd didn't have much of an insight into the term "feminist" or movement called feminism, other than I knew I didn't like it. That said, although I feel better informed now I don't believe I've made any kind of revelatory discover about feminism, or whether their arguments stack up (I still fear not, because I think they reject the fundamental dynamics upon which successful human relationships are based, especially those between men and women of course).
However, to return to the book, and without quoting too many passages for you, there are some things I would like to say.
Firstly I think Christine Wallace has done a great job in debunking Greer (whilst maintaining core beliefs in feminism, admittedly). Maybe only another woman/feminist could so effectively get into the detail and motives/behaviour of Greer, certainly she's looked into it all very deeply.
Some of the criticims of Greer are devastating, and I wanted to give you some good examples, though have decided to shorten it for the benefit of ease for myself, and for ease for your reading (maybe you need to read the book yourself to get sufficient coverage to do justice to this criticism).
"A relentless commitment to truth and to free speech were the most admirable elements of the Push* libertarianism to which Germaine subscribed all her life. In fact she was a wavering exponent of both.
Greer subscribed to a kind of serial truth: her stories and philosophical line changed to fit with her needs at the time, without her attempting to admit or reconcile previous versions."
* "Push libertarianism" was a group based in Sydney, Australia, followers of a philosopher professor called John Anderson.
Germaine Greer's attitude to lying and truth though was actually revealed or hinted at in a quotation of hers from Germaine's book "Daddy, we hardly knew you" (published in 1990) and given in the preface, or at the beginning of Christine Wallace's book:-
"Our whole lives are lived in a tangle of telling, not telling, misleading, allowing to know, concealing, eavesdropping and collusion. When Washington said he could not tell a lie, his father must have answered, 'You had better learn.' "
I'll move on now to what Christine Wallace has to say about Germaine Geer, or her influence, especially on women, and indeed herself:-
"Greer creates a genuine shock of recognition in showing us how fundamentally patriarchal relations have shaped women's lives; any woman who reads "The Female Eunuch" and continues her life unchanged becomes a witting rather than an unconcious partner in her own oppression."
So, the claim that you cannot read Germaine Greers first book, "The Female Eunuch" and remain unchanged by the experience, if you are a woman anyway, without allowing yourself to be oppressed. Claiming that any book should necessarily change anyone's life is an extravagant claim isn't it (with the possible exception of the bible of course).
I haven't read the book that made Germaine Greer famous, and only know one person who has told me she read when it came out in the early 1970's, but she cannot remember too much about it. Therefore, perhaps I shouldn't comment without doing so, but from the extract used in this Christine Wallace biography on Greer, and all the other accounts on Greer's character we've been shown too, I doubt I would either like it or be anything other than shocked in the sense of being appalled, not anything else (but I'm not a woman of course).
I'll finish this short account on Germaine Greer or the Wallace unauthorised biography now, by still admitting that Germaine Greer has somehow managed to retain some aura, or admiration regardless of all I've learnt about her that should eliminate this. That only means I remain a foolish man however, not that someone who has lived her life as she has done deserves admiration, except perhaps for having an intellect, or boasting an intellect I don't possess.
Wallace ends her book by saying: ".....- she is the maverick of mavericks, flawed, sometimes flailing, but always fighting.// This is the key to why she has been an inspiration to so many other women. She has never surrendered her sovereignty. Germaine Greer was never tamed."
That may be true, but has she done any good overall?
"Good", however, or the concept of something being "good or bad" is challenged by the philosophy Greer adhered to so I suppose she wouldn't recognise the question I've raised in the first place.