Kate Millett

From Philosopedia

Katherine Murray Millet (14 September 1934 - )

Millett, a feminist writer and activist, was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and earned a B.A. in English in 1956 at the University of Minnesota. From 1956 to 1958, she studied at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, where she became the first American woman to be awarded a postgraduate degree with first-class honors by that college.

In 1959 she moved to New York City, and in 1961 she moved to Japan, where she taught English and pursued a career as an artist. In 1963, she returned to the United States with sculptor Fumio Yoshimura, whom she married in 1965, then divorced in 1985.

Charles Krinsky has provided other biographical details:

• In March 1970, Millet received a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature from Columbia University. Doubleday published her doctoral dissertation, under the title Sexual Politics, in July of that year. The book offered a comprehensive critique of patriarchy in Western society and literature. In particular, Millett indicted the sexism and heterosexism of renowned novelists D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Norman Mailer, contrasting their perspectives with the dissenting viewpoint of homosexual author Jean Genet.

• Sexual Politics caused a sensation and made Millett an instant, if reluctant, celebrity. Notably, Timefeatured her on the cover of its August 31, 1970, issue. The accompanying article on "Women's Lib" labeled Millett the "Mao Tse-Tung of Women's Liberation." Her tenure as a media icon was brief, however. In 1970, while appearing on a panel at a conference on sexual liberation at Columbia University, a woman in the audience confronted Millett: "Why don't you say you're a lesbian, here, openly. You've said you were a lesbian in the past." In response, Millett stated that she was bisexual.

• Unknown to the participants, a reporter from Time taped the conference. The magazine's December 8, 1970, issue included a follow-up to its earlier cover story. The article's author concluded by stating that Millett's disclosure would "reinforce the views of those skeptics who routinely dismiss all liberationists as lesbians."

• Among feminists, the response to Millett's announcement was decidedly mixed. Gloria Steinem and other members of the National Organization for Women held a press conference in defense of Millett. However, members of NOW's New York chapter only barely voted down a proposal declaring that anyone who spoke publicly about lesbian concerns could not identify herself as a member of the organization. Late in 1971, NOW put out a statement acknowledging lesbian rights as a feminist issue. Nevertheless, the controversy caused many lesbian feminists to grow wary when considering their heterosexual allies' possible allegiances.

• In 1971, Millett started buying and restoring fields and buildings near Poughkeepsie, New York. The project eventually became the Women's Art Colony Farm, a community of female artists and writers. Although continuing to create as a visual artist, Millett has steadily published books that focus on women's issues and other social concerns, especially about the abuses of psychiatry and the mental health system.

• Included among her major works, Flying (1974) chronicles Millett's life after the publication of Sexual Politics and describes her coming-out process. Like all her subsequent writings, Flying combines deeply felt personal revelation with trenchant political analysis. Sita (1977) is a meditation on Millett's doomed love affair with a female college administrator. A.D: A Memoir (1995) describes Millett's Aunt Dorothy's unfavorable response to her niece's lesbianism and the resulting alienation of the two women.

• Perhaps because of her reluctance to become a spokesperson for the women's movement, Millett and her work failed to achieve the lasting popular recognition enjoyed by other second-wave feminists such as Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Germaine Greer. However, Sexual Politics and several other books by Millett were reissued in 2000, an event that may lead to renewed appreciation of the groundbreaking nature of her writing, art, and activism.

In 1979, Millett linked her arms with two Iranian women and marched down the streets of Tehran, protesting that they were demonstrating against "chauvinist" Ayatollah Khomeini, who favored reinstituting the old Islamic dress code. They chanted "Women's lib: not Western, not Eastern, but worldwide. Millett's activism has brought her positive but also negative criticism.

"The Mao Tse Tung of women's liberation", as Time once called her, is 68 now, and it shows. Life has treated her harshly. A few years after she won instant fame, her reputation began to fade, especially after she admitted to being a lesbian, and she soon dropped out of public view. The two occasions when she was "busted into a nuthouse" would break her life in pieces. Perhaps her Bangalore listeners weren't fully aware of the turbulent personal history of this mother of the feminist movement. If they expected her to repeat past statements such as "Patriarchy's chief institution is the family", or answer questions about the feminist movement today, or air her views on U.S. hegemony, they were disappointed. No rhetoric escaped her lips. She simply talked - rambled, rather in a stream-of-consciousness style. It was an uninterrupted performance, of spoken thoughts woven with casual comments through which her life and her views would automatically emerge. "The personal is the political", remember?

Books

Sexual Politics (1970, nonfiction)

The Prostitution Papers (1973, nonfiction)

Flying (1974, memoir)

Sita (1977, memoir)

The Basement (1979, nonfiction)

Going to Iran (1982, nonfiction)

The Looney Bin Trip (1990, nonfiction)

The Politics of Cruelty (1994, nonfiction)

A.D.: A Memoir (1995, memoir)