Beyond the fragments again: Germaine Greer and the politics of feminism

In the mainstream of western cultures feminism has had a long and involved history of connections with individualism. Today some writers argue that we do not really need feminism anymore, that much has been gained, that we are now post-feminist. This essay locates Germaine Greer’s The Whole Woman within these contexts, and sees this book as an intervention in a climate which has become complacent about the gains made by feminism, and which is still rooted in a divisive, fragmenting and individualist ethic. It argues that we need a feminism which is pluralist but which is nevertheless based on more than a notion that whatever women want is enough.