Sunday 31 May 2015

SUMMONSED TO COURT

 
 
My dear friend J had me worried for weeks. For one thing she had told me she was anxious herself, but she refused to explain what it was all about. "A surprise!" she said. It seemed it had something to do with a court appearance in the small market town of Otley in West Yorkshire. Saturday, May 30th was The Big Day.
 

This was reassuring, we were heading for Otley Courthouse, now a thriving arts centre. I'd been here before to the Film Club. As we approached, a vaguely familiar figure strode past me - I mumbled "Hello", anxious not to snub an acquaintance, even if old and half-forgotten.


(Dungarees! They're in vogue again - do you recognise her?)

J need not have worried  - this turned out to be a memorable evening! As Germaine Greer appeared on the small stage the applause was thunderous, increasing in strength and accompanied by whoops and cheers (Harrogate this was NOT!) None of us dared to take photographs of our formidable heroine, though I have found one tweet about the event:


 

Yes, "meandering but never dull" is a good description. Ms Greer's subject was "The Disappearing Woman" - with a short but lively question and answer session to follow. Sometimes she strayed from her main theme and talked about her present obsession, a tree-planting project in Australia. It is, she explained, vital to find something to feel happy, hopeful and positive about. The title of her talk could be taken to refer to one of her main concerns - a worrying imbalance between the birth figures for males and females. In China and India, for example, there appear to be 80 million missing females and large cohorts of surplus males. And figures are rising, the disparity is becoming bigger.
 


 
Another digression turned into a bit of a rant against the Guardian newspaper, accusing its journalists of failing to give enough coverage to women's issues or even to have the courtesy to name them. This point seems to be disproved by the photos above from recent editions of that publication and its sister paper, the Observer. Her complaints caused some shrill and understandably nervous questioning from a female Guardianista, with whom, I have to admit, I felt some unfashionable sympathy. 
The  evening ended with more applause and the encouragingly mixed audience, young and old and LGBT, wandered into the night with dreamy smiles on their faces, tinged with a little regret that the couple of times she had mentioned gays there was a hint of - what? Disdain? Disapproval? Perhaps it was because even she is an old lady now or perhaps we were mistaken. What the heck - we had met a legend! 
 
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8 comments:

  1. This is a wonderful post. Germaine Greer is one of my early feminist heroes (I dare not say heroines). Age can make us cranky. It can also narrow our vision. However, some of us have expanded our acceptance to all who have traditionally been excluded; women, homosexuals, lesbians, people of color, and many, many more.

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    1. Oh yes - I do agree with you! And yes, Germaine was a little cranky, but we were all thrilled to be in her presence and she seemed very happy to be chatting to a gathering of ordinary human beings!

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  2. She is a blast from the past, I wonder if she was talking about feminist issues in relation to the Guardian not featuring women's issues. My favourite female journalists, Deborah Orr, Hadley Freeman and Marina Hyde were all given prominent feature space in the Saturday Guardian this weekend. Perhaps feminism is out of fashion.....

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    1. Yes, I went through this Saturday's Guardian noting many articles that had a female bias and reading all the usual pieces by their great female journalists. Germaine admitted to falling out with the Guardian a while ago and this has obviously coloured her attitude - mind you, I sometimes think one of the pleasures of getting older is to allow oneself to be opinionated once in a while!

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  4. What a treat. I love to hear people speaking live but rarely do. So much of what we hear is edited through the TV & radio.

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  5. A bit of a ranter, yes, that's Germaine for you! She has always managed to annoy me greatly by her strident assumption that she speaks for all women. I've fought my feminine/feminist way through many situations and brought up two daughters in similar fashion but cannot align myself to Germaine's attitudes. Less of the 'old lady' though!

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  6. I certainly agree to some points that you have discussed on this post. I appreciate that you have shared some reliable tips on this review.

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