Kate Millett

Katherine Murray Millett September 14 1934 September 6 2017 was an American feminist writer educator artist and activist She attended the University of Oxford and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with firstclass honors after studying at St Hildas College Oxford She has been described as a seminal influence on secondwave feminism and is best known for her book Sexual Politics 1970 which was based on her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University Journalist Liza Featherstone attributes the attainment of previously unimaginable legal abortion greater professional equality between the sexes and a sexual freedom in part to Milletts efforts The feminist human rights peace civil rights and antipsychiatry movements were some of Milletts principal causes Her books were motivated by her activism such as womans rights and mental health reform and several were autobiographical memoirs that explored her sexuality mental health and relationships In the 1960s and 1970s Millett taught at Waseda University Bryn Mawr College Barnard College and the University of California Berkeley Some of her later written works are The Politics of Cruelty 1994 about statesanctioned torture in many countries and Mother Millett 2001 a book about her relationship with her mother Between 2011 and 2013 she won the Lambda Pioneer Award for Literature received Yoko Onos Courage Award for the Arts and was inducted into the National Womens Hall of Fame Millett was born and raised in Minnesota and then spent most of her adult life in Manhattan and the Womans Art Colony established in Poughkeepsie New York which became the Millett Center for the Arts in 2012 Millett came out as a lesbian in 1970 the year the book Sexual Politics was published However late in the year 1970 she came out as bisexual She was married to sculptor Fumio Yoshimura 1965 to 1985 and later until her death in 2017 she was married to Sophie Keir Katherine Murray Millett was born on September 14 1934 to James Albert and Helen née Feely Millett in Saint Paul Minnesota According to Millett she was afraid of her father an engineer who beat her He was an alcoholic who abandoned the family when she was 14 consigning them to a life of genteel poverty Her mother was a teacher and insurance saleswoman She had two sisters Sally and Mallory the latter was one of the subjects of Three Lives Of Irish Catholic heritage Kate Millett attended parochial schools in Saint Paul throughout her childhood Source Article Kate Millett from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30