An extended clip from the ground-breaking series, The Thread, exploring what connects different Aussie icons who broke away from the pack. Full episode on Prof. Germaine Greer here: goo.gl/YtkkZR
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►Transcript
Hugh: Why do you tell your godchildren to be difficult and dangerous, what are the virtues?
Germaine: Two young women. Well, I actually have had to deal all my life with young women who were ambitious, driven, successful, who have been much too anxious to be involved in a pair-bond with someone. So that they've pushed the issue, they've misinterpreted friendly relationships with serious commitment, all that kind of thing. And then when it all falls apart because he announces I'm going to Yale and she says “What about me?” He goes, “Well what about you? We've had a great time, bye.” And for her it's absolute devastation, utter devastation, she may not even recover from it because so much of her secret ambition was centred in that thing and I think...
Hugh: The relationship?
Germaine: Yes, in the relationship. I keep thinking it's a bit like the hero and the horse, here is this incredible horse and only the hero will ever mount that horse and he nearly gets killed by the horse and when he is finally united with the horse and it has become the horseman then it's a triumph. Shakespeare wrote a play about it in which there's a very feisty, cross, difficult girl and a man who thinks I want her on my side, I really want her on my side. And she's prepared to fight him practically to the death and he has to get involved in some pretty risky psychiatric stunts to get her onto his side so she understands he's not stupid, that if he's playing a game that's a bit puzzling then it might be a good idea to find out what it is. The idea of the boy with a hawk, taming his hawk, it's understood that's an incredibly absorbing relationship. So I want my young women to be more like the hawk, more like the horse and prouder and more genuinely involved in what it is they're actually doing, so that they're not kind of, you can't feel their need creeping out like tendrils.
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►About Prof. Germaine Greer
Professor Germaine Greer is one of the twentieth century’s most influential feminists. The controversial writer and academic overturned a lot of the world’s thinking on feminism when, in 1970, she published her international best-seller, The Female Eunuch. Since then, she’s published other books; co-presented TV series; written for newspapers; and lectured at Cambridge University. She’s continually challenged the status quo through her flamboyant writing and intellectually-charged media appearances. Few Australians have polarised and provoked public opinion as much.
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►About The Thread
Two mates sit down with 10 iconic Australians to figure out how they broke away from the pack. Hugh and Jack seek out leaders of wide-ranging fields: adventure, sport, business, philanthropy, medicine, law and literature to uncover the common thread that binds them.
The interview subjects are household names famed for remarkable and well-told stories, but rarely have they been asked how they did it, how they define success and whether anyone can do what they've done.
Armed with meticulous research and uncomfortably simple questions, we elicit intriguing, inspiring and often unexpected insights from an eclectic bunch of trailblazers.
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Check out all 10 full episodes here: goo.gl/uQDYfu