Melinda Tankard Reist and the Strange Case of Germaine Greer

I wasn’t sure I’d draw attention to this rather odd episode, but here goes… In the past few weeks Melinda Tankard Reist posted a piece by Matthew Holloway which quotes Germaine Greer, on her blog. I’m surprised because Germaine Greer is hardly an ally of her cause.

I think this is worth a brief comment because it points to something in Melinda’s character, especially given her recent attempts to control her image. She is desperate to be taken seriously as a feminist.

The Greer thing began when she and Melinda appeared on the ABC’s Q&A together. A post by Melinda suggests she expected Germaine to rip her apart. I saw the episode and to tell the truth, I was hoping that Germaine would have cause to cut Melinda down to size. It didn’t quite work out that way. In fact they ‘seemed’ to agree. Of course it all depends on the question asked. I even agree with Melinda on some things. However I think that the more likely scenario is that Germaine just didn’t know who Melinda was.

In any case Melinda certainly milked it for all it was worth, publishing a happy snap of her with Germaine.

Personally I think it is intellectually dishonest of Melinda to use Germaine in this way. It is a perfect example of cherry picking, of selectively quoting someone to make it seem they support your cause. A more honest person would represent a person as they would represent themselves.

Germaine’s view is far more nuanced than either Matthew Holloway or Melinda seem to understand, but then I’m not sure they know all that much about her, let alone have the intellect…

Germaine has described herself as an anarcho-communist and a libertarian. Her criticism of pornography is a view that many libertarians actually share, that ‘porn’ as it is currently presented, is a false representation of human sexuality and that anyone who thinks it is real will have a distorted view of sex and of both men and women.