Germaine Greer attacks Elton John for ‘deconstructing’ motherhood
Feminist writer Germaine Greer has warned that motherhood is being “de-constructed” – because Elton John’s husband is listed as ‘mother’ on his children’s birth certificate.
The veteran singer has two sons, Zachary and Elijah – who were born via IVF to Sir Elton and his husband David Furnish.
However, Greer was shocked to find out that Mr Furnish was listed as the pair’s mother on their birth certificate.
According to the Mail, she told an audience at the Hay Festival: “Sometimes I think that really the problem is the concept of motherhood, which we can’t give any real structure to.
“Sir Elton John and his ‘wife’ David Furnish have entered on the birth certificate of their two sons that David Furnish is the mother.
“That will give you an idea of how the concept of motherhood has emptied out. It’s gone. It’s been deconstructed.
“We now have a ‘genetic’ mother, who supplies eggs. It depends entirely on where she is if she is going to be allowed to know what happens to the eggs. And women tend to care.
“An egg is not a sperm, we do not produce 400million of them in one go. One miserable little egg pops every month.
“In some places you are allowed to know what happens to them, in other places you are not. What you get is a reduced bill for IVF because a child is being born by the people involved using your eggs.
“I’m sorry. Did we talk about this? Did we sit down and talk about what eggs mean to women?”
She isn’t the first to take aim at the singer’s family, with designers Dolce and Gabbana causing a storm earlier this year when they criticized his “synthetic children”.
Greer is no stranger to controversy – claiming last year that she doesn’t believe transphobia is a real problem.
When challenged on her controversial views about transgender people, she said: “I didn’t know there was such a thing [as transphobia]. Arachnaphobia, yes. Transphobia, no.”
She has also suggested that trans women do not know what it is like “to have a big, hairy, smelly vagina”.
However, transgender Banana star Bethany Black challenged the comments – insisting that she does have a smelly vagina.
