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Feminist Icon and Author Kate Millett Dies [View all]
https://www.advocate.com/women/2017/9/06/feminist-icon-and-author-kate-millett-dies
The writer of the benchmark 1970s book Sexual Politics has died at age 82.
BY ARIEL SOBEL
SEPTEMBER 06 2017 5:06 PM EDT
Kate Millett, the prominent feminist writer who's 1970 doctoral thesis, Sexual Politics, launched her from a Columbia student to a second-wave revolutionary, died on Wednesday at the age of 82.
Millett's book was considered a more queer-friendly alternative to Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, which maliciously labeled lesbians as the "lavender menace." In a movement spearheaded by Millet, queer feminists reclaimed the term "lavender menace," and Millett eventually came out as a lesbian herself. Her book questioned the origins of patriarchy, claiming they were political and cultural, and asserted that sexual revolution relied on breaking down the traditional heteronormative family.
Millett was born in Minnesota in 1934. Her father, an alcoholic, abandoned her family when she was 14, leaving her mother and two sisters in poverty. A wealthy aunt paid for her education, leading her to study comparative literature at Columbia University and to teach at Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, and the University of California, Berkeley.
The writer, whose work many consider a milestone in the fight for legal abortion, gender equality in the workplace, and sexual freedom, sought not to be a spokesperson for the feminist movement. “Better to operate on an even keel like Friedan and Gloria [Steinem] and the others,” she later reflected. “All far better politicians. But I am not a politician. Not ‘Kate Millett of Women’s Lib’ either.”
</snip>
The writer of the benchmark 1970s book Sexual Politics has died at age 82.
BY ARIEL SOBEL
SEPTEMBER 06 2017 5:06 PM EDT
Kate Millett, the prominent feminist writer who's 1970 doctoral thesis, Sexual Politics, launched her from a Columbia student to a second-wave revolutionary, died on Wednesday at the age of 82.
Millett's book was considered a more queer-friendly alternative to Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, which maliciously labeled lesbians as the "lavender menace." In a movement spearheaded by Millet, queer feminists reclaimed the term "lavender menace," and Millett eventually came out as a lesbian herself. Her book questioned the origins of patriarchy, claiming they were political and cultural, and asserted that sexual revolution relied on breaking down the traditional heteronormative family.
Millett was born in Minnesota in 1934. Her father, an alcoholic, abandoned her family when she was 14, leaving her mother and two sisters in poverty. A wealthy aunt paid for her education, leading her to study comparative literature at Columbia University and to teach at Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, and the University of California, Berkeley.
The writer, whose work many consider a milestone in the fight for legal abortion, gender equality in the workplace, and sexual freedom, sought not to be a spokesperson for the feminist movement. “Better to operate on an even keel like Friedan and Gloria [Steinem] and the others,” she later reflected. “All far better politicians. But I am not a politician. Not ‘Kate Millett of Women’s Lib’ either.”
</snip>
RIP and thank you Kate.
4 replies
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