The Female Eunuch remains a feminist classic and while truly a book of its time (women were advised to taste their menstrual blood), the author’s sabre-rattling intellect hasn’t dated. The tone was set by the provocative female body-suit on the cover, while the text counselled women to break free in all ways from male-prescribed gendered “normality”, including monogamy. This work marked Greer out as a taboo-busting feminist punk, before punk was even invented. Composite: Sandra Lousada for the Observer The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970)

Her book remains relevant today because it encouraged readers to question not just the topics cited, but everything around them and tounderstand better how sexism could be systematically ingrained, culturally as well as politically.ġ9 editions of The Female Eunuch, featuring the iconic cover art by John Holmes, and Germaine Greer photographed for the Observer magazine in 1970. Calling out the likes of Norman Mailer, Henry Miller and DH Lawrence, for what might be politely termed patriarchal/male dominant gender bias, and impolitely, literary macho dick-swinging, Millett set the benchmark for in-depth, no-holds-barred feminist critique. Sexual Politics brought the fizz of iconoclasm to gender politics, tackling how women were routinely diminished and over-sexualised in literature and wider culture. With a precision and defiance that still resonates today, The Feminine Mystique challenged the notion that, for women, anatomy was destiny. Friedan also identified “the problem that has no name”, probing the lack of fulfilment in women’s lives – where everything “domestic” and trivial was deemed theirs, and everything important was “men only”. It was a call to arms, demystifying what became known as “second-wave feminism” for ordinary women all over the world. This book was no mere pity-party for dissatisfied 1950s/60s Valium-gobbling US housewives. Read more The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963)

Author of the beauty myth