Daily News Directory : Germaine Greer gives Cardiff University oration despite campaign to prevent lecture

Friday, November 20, 2015

Germaine Greer gives Cardiff University oration despite campaign to prevent lecture

Friday, November 20, 2015

free speech

12 October 2015: Wikinews interviews painter Pricasso on his art and freedom of expression
30 August 2015: Cairo court retrial: Al Jazeera journalists sentenced to three years’ jail
17 August 2015: Woman fined in Spain under new 'Gag Law'
5 May 2015: German journalists detained in Qatar while investigating controversial 2022 FIFA World Cup hosting win
27 March 2015: UK Supreme Court require government to release Prince Charles 'black spider' letters

Collaborate!

Feminist author and academic Germaine Greer gave a lecture at Cardiff University on Wednesday despite a petition with over 3,000 signatures calling for its cancellation.

	I feel like the words Germaine Greer has spouted in recent years has no place in our movement
—Emily Cotterill, LGBTQ rights activist

Australian Greer gave the Hayden Ellis Lecture entitled "Women and Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century" under security with uniformed police officers and university security guards. The lecture covered equal pay for women, and Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragettes.

Ms Greer had been criticised by LGBTQ rights activists for comments made about transgender reality television star Caitlyn Jenner, and her belief that 'post-operative' trans women aren't 'real women'. The women's officer of the Cardiff University Student Union called for cancelling the lecture in a Change.org petition which has received over 3,000 signatures. "I'm 76," Greer said in a BBC Newsnight interview, "I don't want to go down there and be screamed at and have things thrown at me." However, ultimately she did give the lecture.

The Independent reported a group of around two dozen protestors outside the lecture. LGBTQ rights activist Emily Cotterill, who was at the protest, said she believed transphobia had no place in modern feminism. "I feel like the words Germaine Greer has spouted in recent years has no place in our movement", Ms Cotterill said.

Have an opinion on this story? Post it!