Kate Millett

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Lore & Background

Kate Millett was born on September 14, 1934, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to James Albert and Helen Millett. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota in 1956 with a BA in English literature. A wealthy aunt paid for her education at St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she earned a first-class honors degree in English literature in 1958, becoming the first American woman to do so. She completed her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University in September 1969 and was awarded her doctorate, with distinction, in March 1970. Millett taught at Waseda University, Bryn Mawr College, Barnard College, and the University of California, Berkeley. She was married to sculptor Fumio Yoshimura from 1965 to 1985, and later, until her death in 2017, she was married to Sophie Keir. Millett came out as a lesbian in 1970, the year *Sexual Politics* was published, but late in the year she came out as bisexual.

Reader's Guide

Kate Millett's significance lies in her foundational role in second-wave feminism through her book *Sexual Politics*, which articulated a theory of patriarchy and gender oppression. Journalist Liza Featherstone credited Millett's efforts with helping achieve "legal abortion, greater professional equality between the sexes, and a sexual freedom." Millett's activism extended to human rights, peace, civil rights, and anti-psychiatry movements. Her later works include *The Politics of Cruelty* (1994), about state-sanctioned 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 Ono's Courage Award for the Arts, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Her legacy includes the Millett Center for the Arts, established in 2012 from the Woman's Art Colony in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Did You Know?

• Kate Millett was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors after studying at St Hilda's College, Oxford.
• Her book *Sexual Politics* (1970) was based on her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University.
• Millett came out as a lesbian in 1970, but later that year she came out as bisexual.
• In 1979, Millett and Sophie Keir traveled to Tehran, Iran, to work for Iranian women's rights and were detained overnight before being put on a plane to Paris.
• Between 2011 and 2013, Millett won the Lambda Pioneer Award for Literature, received Yoko Ono's Courage Award for the Arts, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.