The First Stone: Some Questions about Sex and Power

As a university undergradute in the 1990s, i can identify with many of the issues that Garner writes about in this book. There was a culture in Australian universities that harrassment was a big issue, and it did occassionally go overboard (the veiwpoint 'that every man is a potential rapist'is one i heard myself more than once)though i think the pendulum is starting to swing the other way again. Garner is a good writer, and manages to take what could have been a very dry subject and bring it to life without making it a rant. There is enough of the personal in this to make it interesting, and the author is quite open in relating her biases. I do feel that occassionally she is a little too histrionic in her retelling of conversations with others, and the story does jump about a bit; but overall the reporting is top class. While things may have moved on in the gender wars in Australia to other battlefields, this book is still important, even if only as an exhibit in the history of Australian feminism. I know that there was a lot of debate generated when it was first published, and i know it made me think through many principles that i myself hold. I hope that other readers are also able to take away something from reading this well written book.

This book brilliantly reveals the perversion of feminist ideals and the highly destructive nature of gender-ideological warfare on campuses in Australia in the 1990s. It is a lucid piece of investigative writing that explores the highly complex world of gender politics and its miserable downfall in a country where public opinion has been motivated by default to sympathise with the woman in cases of sexual harassment as a result of stereotypical imagery of male aggression and dominance in the sexual environment. Most importantly, the book describes how incorrect and false these stereotypes can be. The First Stone illustrates the destruction of one man's life; his profession, his family, his reputation as a respected member of the academic community, all this despite his acquittal, due to the relentless attacks on his person for being identified as a cultural outsider (in the College he ran with great success and enthusiasm) by feminist interest groups hell bent at `getting back' at the class he is meant to represent. This is a highly recommended book by those who wish to understand the other side of the story.

One of those books you can't put down, and thus read from early afternoon 'till 3 the next morning. A highly controversial Australian best seller, this is a personal account of the Author's attempt to discover the truth behind a claim of sexual harrassment. Two young, astute and attractive young women are the complainants, a quiet, genial (clumsy or innocent?) college warden approaching retirement the "victim". Helen Garner, a feminist of the old school, questions the destructive bitterness the direction modern feminism has taken on this case, and further questions the portrayal of the young women in the case as "powerless" - the very opposite thing feminism should be doing, in her view. What I can't put in words is the beautiful writing; the sympathetic, transcendent portrayal of the human condition with all its foibles. You must read this book!