SOURCE: “Germaine Greer's Trouble With Men,” in The Washington Post, June 12, 1999, pp. C1, C5.

In the following essay, Frey discusses Greer's views on men, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, children, and relationships.

Germaine Greer is in a bit of a fuss over a man. Not men as a universal group, although she has quite a few issues with them, too. Greer is plenty clear in her new book, The Whole Woman, what she thinks about men. “To be male,” she writes, “is to be a kind of idiot savant.” Men are “freaks of nature.” They are slothful. They are spongers. They are mean.

But this fuss isn't about men, it's about A Man. The Man. The man she gave—oh dear, how embarrassing—a tape of her voice so he wouldn't miss her too much during her current American book tour. She's desperate to get that tape back now that...