In the section talking about plastic surgery as a self-mutilation, Greer mentions FGM. This ties into where people have (perhaps mistakenly) argued that she is a proponent of FGM. Women themselves take part in the reproduction of this culture, Greer argues, but it is imposed by men. It is an interesting thought and one that a lot of feminists have argued, but one that is nevertheless important to be reminded of. No one can be more woman than woman herself in her natural state. A woman is never more woman than before she alters her appearance, because that is what the woman is - nothing more, nothing less. The armpit hair, the leg hair, the often asymmetrical breasts and the body fat is all woman. She rightly argues that a woman is a woman in her natural state. From the position where Greer stands, all this shaving, use of make up, obsessive striving to become thinner than is healthy and the consequent widespread use of plastic surgery to look as 'perfect' as possible, is nothing but a result of mainly male thinking that the female is not female enough and so has to be altered in order to fit their imaginings of the female. In this section, Greer talks about manmade women, plastic surgery and the strive to look as unnatural and unwomanly as possibly can. Actually, one of the things I had read about this book before I read it was how Greer had been under heavy criticism as it comes of as if she is defending FGM in this book, and I will explain why I disagree with this assessment. In it, Greer discusses everything from body ideals to abortion and female genital mutilation (FGM).

I think my favourite part of the book, and the one that was thought-provocative in a way that I could grasp was this section. I shall structure my thinking according to these sections below in order to get some kind of coherent text instead of loads of brain splatter. The book is structured in four sections called 'body,' 'mind,' 'love,' and 'power,' each section dealing with topics that, not so surprisingly fall under those headings. Both are quite expected when dealing with feminism, but I was happy to see that it was a provocative book as these usually make for interesting reading. The reviews were interesting, it was everything from the types where Greer is claimed to have completely changed someone's world to accusing her of hating all but homosexual women. As I have said, there is no one feminism, but several feminism s and one feminist writer does not represent them all, so I wanted to know what kind of feminism I was going to encounter in this book.

Before I opened this book, I went to Amazon to read the reviews of the book in order to get some kind of inkling what this book was all about and what Germaine Greer, a person I've never read before, could possibly say in it.

The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer