All that remains to the mother in modern consumer society is the role of scapegoat; psychoanalysis uses huge amounts of money and time to persuade analysands to foist their problems onto the absent mother, who has no opportunity to utter a word in her own defense. Hostility to the mother in our societies is an index of mental health.

About Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminism movement in the latter half of the 20th century.

More quotations from Germaine Greer

Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a good deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe.

—Germaine Greer

Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves.

—Germaine Greer

dreams

I do think that women could make politics irrelevant by a kind of spontaneous cooperative action, the likes of which we have never seen—just so far from people's ideas of state structure and viable social structure that it seems to them like total anarchy. And what it is is very subtle forms of interrelation which do not follow some hierarchical pattern that is fundamentally patriarchal. The opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy, but fraternity. And I think it's women who are going to have to break the spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation.

—Germaine Greer

The older woman's love is not love of herself, nor of herself mirrored in a lover's eyes, nor is it corrupted by need. It is a feeling of tenderness so still and deep and warm that it gilds every grass blade and blesses every fly. It includes the ones who have a claim on it, and a great deal else besides. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

—Germaine Greer

love life earth womanhood

More quotations tagged with “motherhood”

How insulting is it to suggest that the best thing women can do is raise other people to do incredible things? I'm betting some of those women would like to do great things of their own.

—Jessica Valenti in Why Have Kids?

accomplishment feminism women parenting motherhood sexism

There is an emptiness inside of me—a void that will never be filled. No one in your life will ever love you as your mother does. There is no love as pure, unconditional and strong as a mother's love. And I will never be loved that way again.

—Hope Edelman in Motherless Daughters

love mother motherhood emptiness

I don't need a baby growing inside me for nine months. For one thing, there's morning sickness. If I'm going to feel nauseous and achy when I wake up, I want to achieve that state the old fashioned way: getting good and drunk the night before.

—Ellen DeGeneres

humor alcohol motherhood

Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.

—Barbara Kingsolver

strength laws motherhood

Being a mother is a noble status, right? Right. So why does it change when you put "unwed" or "welfare" in front of it?

—Florynce Kennedy

nobility marriage motherhood welfare

History

23 Nov 2014 Added