Germaine Greer

[newstart2380]

Have just been listening to an interview on ABC 24 and she called Juliar Gillard an organ grinders monkey the way she dressed. Here was this wrinkled stick with a head of hair that looked like she had put her hand in the power socket critisizing how another person looked. I personally have never admired this loud, overbearing feminist.

[amber-eyed-girl]

Freakiness, then start a new thread and ask for people's opinions on those things, for a comparison.

[darksideofthemoon]

Well there's one thing about Germaine, she can still incite a strong discussion 

[polksaladallie]

Well someone here hinted that her writings caused divorce statistics to soar.  (It was in fact the enlightened Whitlam government)

So let's go back to the days when it was extremely rare.  Like in my parents' generation and before. Couples were forced to stay together by society, and many (mainly women) had miserable and tragic lives.

Or even in the 60s, when divorce was disgraceful, and it brought shame on the family.  Some families turned their back on the daughter seeking the divorce.

There were only three grounds for divorce, and it was very difficult to prove those grounds.  In every Saturday's newspaper, the divorces were printed.  The names, their addresses, their occupations, the names of any other persons involved, the reasons for the divorces were printed for all to see.

Bad Greer for wanting to ease that pain.  Lets go back to those days.

[boris1gary]

I agree polks, after my Nan died i found out that she had never been married to Pop, she had been married to some bloke who had beaten and beaten her so badly that she had fled (northern NSW somewhere) with a friend and settled in Newtown. She met my Pop and stayed with him till he died some 40 odd years later. She never ever spoke about this, never got a divorce and it makes me really sad that we never got a chance to talk about it, only my mother knew and she only found out when she went to marry herself and of course there were no records for her parents marriage.

Nan was a wonderful, wonderful woman and very brave to do what she did (it would have been the late 30's).

off topic a little i know.

[polksaladallie]

A story to demonstrate what I said.  It would have been very very rare.  Your Nan was very courageous.  Did she have any children when she fled?  Did her family shun her? 

I had an aunt who always wore long sleeves and a scarf to family gatherings.  Looking back I think she was probably abused. Of course nobody talked about anything like that in those days.  She was married to a prominent doctor, and was the mother of a couple of prominent doctors.

[azureline**]

My father in law (86 and has dementia) said on Monday................

"we had a set of rules about what we could talk about and that was that, we followed them"

[boris1gary]

Polks. nobody knows now as Mum has gone as well, Nan and Pop did have 3 children, but we will never know now whether 1 or all of them were Pop's or not, I can't remember Nan's parents at all, there is only 1 photo of them and all she ever said about them was that they were very strict, so my guess would be yes, they shunned her. Pop was an orphan who came out of an orphanage in Junee.