Theatre L, the largest lecture room in the UCD arts block, is, unusually, packed to capacity. As many young male students as female arrive to hear one of the most outspoken - and most entertaining - of feminist theoreticians. Germaine Greer the iconoclast has become an icon, one who has withstood a number of theoretical u-turns.
Informed and confident of her literary, historical and cultural range of references, Greer possesses more gear changes than most intellectuals. She also knows how to use earthy humour. She has always been a natural commentator: articulate, dogged, logical. Her opinions have not become outdated because they, like her, have evolved and developed. She is emphatic, passionate, convincing, sweeping but never absolutist - and therein lies the secret of her continuing influence. Well, partly. In addition to her understanding of popular culture and her obvious talent for performing, she has always been a career academic - she completed her Ph. D on Shakespeare's early comedies in 1967. A variety of university posts followed. At a glance it is obvious that no undergraduate activity could shock her; university society has always been her environment.
At 59 she remains impressive, even intimidating and unpredictable - bringing to mind that famous quote from Antony And Cleopatra: "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety". In person she looks softer, less virago-like than she often appears on television. Dressed in an austere, long, grey woollen garment and flat shoes, she has a striking presence as well as an intrepid quality.
She remains one of those clever Australians who arrived in England and challenged the academic, literary and arts establishments. There are those who have never forgiven her and others who cheer as she fearlessly guts cosy Booker shortlists and other public endorsements of bumkum.
It is easy to imagine her taking charge, bossing people about on a sinking ship or equally, enjoying a picnic on the slopes of a grumbling volcano. Say something stupid and she will metaphorically toss you over her shoulder like an impatient cat weary of a sluggish mouse not worthy of the effort.
Auditor of UCD's Philosophy Society, Stephen Dodd, the man responsible for Greer's visit, has hardly surprisingly acquired a demeanour suspended somewhere between a secret service man and a henpecked husband. Though aware he has achieved a coup, Dodd has no intention of relaxing, not while his famous guest remains on campus.
Meanwhile Greer waits upstairs, confident, and once she greets you launches into a lively debate with herself about the virtues of a book she is reading (Howard Jacobson's novel No More Mister Nice Guy) and expected to hate but "I'm enjoying it" and she proceeds to explain what exactly the author is doing. It is almost 30 years since Germaine Greer became famous with the publication of The Female Eunuch. Other books followed, including The Obstacle Race and Sex And Destiny as well as academic works on women painters and Shakespeare. She is she says "a Jill of all trades".
Flashback to her younger self and in the wake of her first book, it was Greer who was challenged to televised public debate by Norman Mailer, by then some 20 years into his career. She appears to have won that one, noting in an 1971 essay: "When the revolution comes it will not be on television. It will be live. Mailer won't be there and no one will miss him."
Since then, the feminist movement has peaked. At its height the radicalism was aggressive and threatening enough to alienate women as much as men. Now it seems to have faltered, possibly because most women are too stressed to protest. "It's not really that women can have everything, it's more like they can do everything and that's not quite the same."
Central to her observations is that men are "sad, fantasy-ridden, fragile, bizarre creatures". None of the assembled males seem overly concerned about being described as "weird". There were no protests. In fact several nod their heads in agreement. Greer's reading of male/female relations is bleak but true. "Whatever happened to love letters?" she asks with mock dismay.
Men emerge as selfish, silly creatures more interested in racing down the motorway and overtaking bigger, better cars, particularly if driven by women. "Men aren't interested in women," she says. There are no heroes in Greer's world view. "Women are still dancing backwards," she adds. Underlying much of the dynamic between men and women is "the fear of the unknown female, the contempt for the known female".
Women may groan but we still accept the roles we have traditionally been handed. Young girls are now advised in teen magazines she says, how to attract men but are no longer told how to keep them. "Historically women have been identified by body not soul."
Greer then raises the issue of handbags and wonders why women carry these objects which are full of things no one ever uses. "Getting rid of the handbag is essential to being free," she says, adding that when she sees people carrying particularly vast ones "I want to ask them `are you expecting to be kidnapped?' ".
Handbags lead on to wombs. The womb, she says, "is seen as an inert, passive space, a bag waiting to be filled". Her exasperation rising, she says: "The womb is not some sort of empty handbag."
Not for the first time, I think how much her comic delivery reminds me of Dave Allen. She moves on to consider the language of male sexual arousal: " `He found himself erect'. Now what does that mean? He stood up?"
Women are conditioned to fear male genitalia, she says. When one of the old ladies in the village Greer used to live in went about wearing nothing except an old greatcoat, which she frequently opened, people merely responded to her cries of "What do you think about that then?" with "Oh, very nice", and moved on. "Had it been a man," said Greer, "he would have been arrested pretty quickly after the first couple of flashes. When women are asked about their reactions to men exposing themselves, they usually say they were frightened. But frightened of what?"
She makes effective use of Sylvia Plath's concise analogy, "old turkey neck and gizzards".
Wombs and ovaries are dispensable, she says, "but the penis is majestic. Just go try and suggest you want it cut off," she says, directing herself to the males present. "Say it's bothering you and you would rather be without it, and see what happens. You'll be talked out of it."
Barbie dolls, according to Greer, are sinister male fantasy objects. "Barbie is the threat," she points out. "Women are made of flesh, not silicone. And look at it this way, Pamela Anderson may be the definitive male Barbie fantasy but it doesn't stop her getting beaten up by her husband."
The reality of penetration also preoccupies her: "The penis cannot penetrate the mind," she assures her listeners.
The audience is with her. Having denounced gender re-assignment as "unethical", motherhood emerges as something we need to defend. Greer seems to like children and is not wary of the three-year-old girl with the pink umbrella sitting in the front row. "Children remind us we are normal," she says, and refers to "child-free zones" in Britain. Mothers have been reduced, she says, and the house where mother lives is the house "where we have our food cooked and our clothes washed and nobody lives anymore." After more than two hours she says "I could go on, but I'm going to stop." Cigarettes are lit in the audience and the questions begin. Asked how she now feels about her powerful memoir, Daddy We Hardly Knew You, she evades the personal and merely says that she had a better relationship with her sister since the book appeared.
More than one man later describes her as "magnificent". The little girl is more pragmatic. "She's pretty and she's very funny, but she talks too much."