She said of the times when she was committed, "To remain sane in a bin is to defy its definition," she said.[48]. [30], Feminist author and historian Marilyn Yalom wrote that "Millett refuses the labels that would declare her insane", continuing "she conveys the paranoid terror of being judged cruelly by others for what seems to the afflicted person to be a reasonable act. "[62], Millett recorded her visit to Iran and the demonstrations by Iranian feminists against the fundamentalist shift in Iran politics under Khomeini's government. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media. A feminist activist, writer, visual artist, filmmaker, teacher and human rights advocate, Kate Millett has been described as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century. Millett and other tenants held out but ultimately lost their battle. About 20,000 women attended a march through the city's Freedom Square; many of whom were stabbed, beaten, or threatened with acid. [20], Millett visited Ireland in the fall of 1980 as an activist. She was among a group of young, radical, and untenured educators who wanted to modernize women's education; Millett wanted to provide them with "the critical tools necessary to understand their position in a patriarchal society. She currently serves as the Director of the Millett Center for the Arts, a creative work space that provides artist-in-residence accommodation and studio facilities to women artists from around the world. She pursued her art career in Japan and New York, and married the Japanese sculptor Fumio Yoshimura in 1965. Millett was in Paris with her wife, Sophie Keir, when she died. Mailer lampooned her in “The Prisoner of Sex” as “the Battling Annie of some new prudery.”, The “Sexual Politics” project, Ms. Millett told Time, “got bigger and bigger until I was almost making a political philosophy.” From depictions of the sexes in literature, she examined how women were socialized to accept, even defend, their lower status in society, a process she called “interior colonization.”, “It is interesting,” she wrote in “Sexual Politics,” “that many women do not recognize themselves as discriminated against; no better proof could be found of the totality of their conditioning.”. [45] In this interview, Millett criticized those who wished to abolish age of consent laws, saying the issue was not focused on children's rights but "being approached as the right of men to have sex with kids below the age of consent" and added that "no mention is made of relationships between women and girls". Besides Ms. Keir, she is survived by two sisters, Sally Millett Rau and Mallory Millett Danaher. Some of the institutions she has worked for include, Tokyo’s Waseda University, Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Sacramento State University, and University of California at Berkeley. Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. [20] Her behavior was that of psychiatric drug withdrawal, including "mile-a-minute" speech, which turned her peaceful art colony to "a quarrelsome dystopia. [59] Although there were other important moments in the movement, like the founding of the National Organization for Women and release of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, it was in 1970 that the media gave greater attention to the feminist movement, first with a front page article in The New York Times and coverage on the three network's news programs about the Women's Strike for Equality event that summer. 1 Canal StreetPost Office Box 335Seneca Falls, NY 13148Phone (315) 568-8060, Privacy PolicyWebsite design by Shannon-Rose Design, Shop at AmazonSmile and Amazon will make a donation to the National Women’s Hall of Fame, The Founding of the National Women’s Hall of Fame. But her reputation and footing in the world were never secure. Still, she inspired generations of girls and women who read her words, heard her words and understood her words.”. Freud’s theory of “penis envy” came in for withering critique; so too did Norman Mailer and his anxious regard for masculinity. She then moved to Japan and studied sculpture. [57] WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. "Many healthy people, she said, are 'driven to mental illness' by society's disapproval and by the 'authoritarian institution of psychiatry. [54], Millett disputed diagnoses and labels like manic depression (bipolar disorder) and schizophrenia, which she claimed are placed upon people who exhibit socially unacceptable behavior. Her first significant contribution came in 1966, when she was named as the first Chair of the Education Committee of the newly formed National Organization for Women (NOW). [4][5] Scholar Camille Paglia described Millett's scholarship as deeply flawed, declaring that "American feminism's nose dive began" when Millett achieved prominence. After its release, three women from the film crew sued Millett for violating the profit-sharing terms of their contract. Since then, she has authored numerous articles and essays and ten additional books. [61], Millett wrote her autobiographical books Flying (1974) and Sita (1977) about coming out as gay, partly an important consciousness-raising activity. [2][44][nb 4] Her relationship with her mother was strained by her radical politics, domineering personality, and unconventional lifestyle. [65] In 2012, she was awarded one of that year's Courage Award for the Arts by Yoko Ono,[66] which Ono created to "recognize artists, musicians, collectors, curators, writers—those who sought the truth in their work and had the courage to stick to it, no matter what" and "honor their work as an expression of my vision of courage".