Veteran Feminists of America ICONS

Table of Contents

Muriel Fox Kate Millett

RETURN TO FRONTPAGE

FEMINIST ICON KATE MILLETT ACTIVIST, WRITER, ARTIST, TREE FARMER KATE MILLETT was one of the most active and passionate of pioneer feminists. In 1967 she belonged to NYC NOW and practically every other feminist organization in the city. When radical feminists asked why she belonged to "conservative" NOW she'd reply, "If there were a thousand feminist organizations, I'd join them all." (photo left by Cynthia MacAdams) Kate was born in 1934 in St Paul, MN, the middle of three daughters. Her parents separated when she was very young, and Kate remembers her mother struggling to earn enough to support her daughters. She received her B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1956 and in 1958 obtained a first-class degree with honors from St Hilda's College, Oxford. In 1961 Kate moved to Japan to study sculpture. Two years later she returned to the United States with fellow sculptor Fumio Yoshimura, whom she married in 1965, and lived in a three-story loft in New York's famous Bowery. Fumio's art gallery on the top floor was filled with his kites and flying sculptures, Kate's was on the second floor where her works were as down-to-earth as his were ethereal. I especially remember her toilet sculpture of a woman's legs in high heels straddling the bowl. What a statement! In 1968 the toilet graced the Park Avenue building, home of Colgate-Palmolive, where NOW members announced to the world that this company, which sold its products to women, was discriminatory against its female employees financially and professionally. As Anselma dell'Olio poured Ajax down the toilet, we all shouted, "This is where you throw AJAX, women!" In one week C-P changed it's policy. Kate also led the week-long demonstration against the New York Times to protest that newspaper's refusal to follow Title VII guidelines and desegregate its Help Wanted ads. At the crack of dawn Kate was in front of the Times building urging us on. I remember spending hours with others in Kate's loft typing "Token Learning," Kate's work accusing the Seven Sisters colleges of betraying their trust by not providing education for women equal to that of men while boasting that their mission was "to educate women to become good wives and mothers." Besides her work with NOW and radical groups, Kate helped organize and run Barnard Women's Liberation. It is a mystery how she had time to write her Ph.D dissertation which, when published as SEXUAL POLITICS in 1970, made her famous and changed her life. The book was said to be "the first book of academic feminist literary criticism" and "one of the first feminist books of this decade to raise nationwide male ire." It was dedicated to her husband, Fumio Yoshimura, who was also a feminist. For a while she was a media darling. But Kate was never comfortable with her fame. She didn't want to be a "spokesperson" for the Movement, which the media expected of her, and she hated the loss of her privacy. Then, at a talk she was giving at Barnard in 1970 someone shouted out that Kate should come out as bisexual and all hell broke loose. TIME magazine, which had featured her on its cover and had raved about her book, now discredited her. It was a shock to Kate and to everyone who knew and loved her. Sales of her book fell, speaking engagements dried up, and it seemed her own country didn't appreciate her. But she was greatly admired by feminists around the world and she traveled to many countries speaking and inspiring women. She continued writing, though her other books weren't as well received as Sexual Politics. made films and spent more time at her art. In 1971 her marriage to Yoshimura ended, but they remained good friends. She'd bought fields and buildings near Poughkeepsie, N.Y, and, after her divorce she created a Women's Art Colony, a community of female artists and writers paid for by the sale of her silk-screen prints and the Christmas trees hand-sheared by the artists in residence. In 2004, she sold most of the fields, but retained a home there where she spends the summers and most weekends. (right:The Farm House) A few years ago Kate was diagnosed, like many of her generation, as "bipolar". She did something unusual: she won her own sanity trial in St. Paul. On a dare with her lawyer, together they changed the State of Minnesota's commitment law. She has since become an advocate for all those who labor under the stigma of mental health -- as a representative of MindFreedom International at the United Nations regarding the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, recently signed by President Obama. Today she divides her time between her New York apartment and the farm in Poughkeepsie, writing, sculpting, and painting. (photo left: by Sampath Kumar G.P. - Kate was in Bangalore March 2002. She read out excerpts from her work, Sita, and also launched her installation, American Dreams Go To Pot) Jacqui Ceballos Kate's books: Sexual Politics, The Prostitution Papers, Flying, Sita, The Basement, Going to Iran, The Loony-Bin Trip, The Politics of Cruelty, A.D.: A Memoir, Mother Millett. Her film: Three Lives. She has also participated in many film interviews, including Des fleurs pour Simone de Beauvoir, The Real Yoko Ono, Bookmark, Daughters of de Beauvoir, Not a Love Story (a film about pornography made in 1981 by the Canadian Film Board). The same producer gave a study of her literary work and style in French Canada in a magazine called "La Vie en Rose". The story of Michael X was an oration given at Oxford University. There are many other film interviews with German film-makers and much archival footage of Kate Millett's speeches in Turkey. Her works also include translations into many languages, to name a few -- Turkish, Korean, Japanese, German, and all the Scandavian languages. Sexual Politics was just reissued in a new edition in Spanish. With the exception of Sexual Politics, all her works are "out of print" -- Kate has, like Picasso, bought herself in. It's a sad occasion for an author so productive, but also an opportunity. She is now free to sell her books abroad and to Americans at reasonable prices. Most of her books cost $25 in hard cover or in paperback. Certain texts, "first editions", are more expensive. The "Elegy for Sita" is still only $50, as it was the first day it was issued by Targ Press -- using fine papers with a type of her own choice, including illustrations. She will henceforth print her own pictures at the farm under her own imprint called Loosestrife Press. Size will be bound by the size of the paper, 20" x 40" and 20" x 25", suitable for framing. She has exhibited her artwork all over the world. ----------------------------------------------- Andrea Dworkin on Kate Millett Published in the NEW STATESMAN - July 14, 2003 The world was sleeping and Kate Millett woke it up. Betty Friedan had written about the problem that had no name. Kate Millett named it, illustrated it, exposed it, analysed it. (right: Andrea Dworkin) Thirty-three years later, it is hard to remember or envision the convulsive shock of this new idea. Male-over-female had been seen as a physical inevitability not unlike gravity. Nothing that had to do with sex was open to questions of power, dominance or hierarchy. Social sex roles originated in and were determined by biology or a supernatural divinity. The male was the figure of action, even heroism. He alone was made in God's image. He ruled in religion, marriage and politics as conventionally understood. His sovereign place as head of the family was unchallenged. Millett called this arrangement "patriarchy", which she described as "male shall dominate female, elder male shall dominate younger". Millett described the "consent" of the female to this male-over-female paradigm as a process of socialisation in which women were constrained to be passive, ignorant, valued if at all for bearing children, a function shared with animals; men were distinguished by the distinctly human characteristics. Women were socialised to accept both the superiority of men and their own inferiority, which was then justified by assertions of male biological superiority: men were physically stronger. Patriarchy itself was seen as inevitably derived from the superior physical strength of the male. Millett went on to hypothesise a civilisation that was pre-patriarchy; if this civilisation existed, she reasoned, then male strength could not be the signature reason for patriarchy. Millett also attacked gender as such. There were too many varieties of biological phenomena associated with being male or female to reify any simple-minded biological determinism. She saw the constituent parts of gender as socially determined, ideologically reinforced by master-sex dominance. Millett also described the economics of sexual politics: females worked for no money or less money. She described the ways in which women have always worked but without adequate recompense, which helped keep women under the sway of men. She also described the use of force against women, including the phenomena of compulsory pregnancy and rape. She analysed the role of the state in maintaining the inferiority of women and also the role of legal systems in various societies. Remarkably, she noted how "references to wife-beating, for example, invariably produce laughter and some embarrassment". Jokes about wife-beating abounded while it was society's position that no such brutality really existed. Millett claimed that hostility towards women was expressed through laughter and "[m]isogynist literature", which she called "the primary vehicle of masculine hostility", being both a "hortatory and comic genre. Of all the artistic forms in patriarchy it is the most frankly propagandistic. Its aim is to reinforce both sexual fac-tions in their status." (left: Kate Millett, photograph, 1994, © Happy/ L.A. Hyder) Millett's methodology was new. While using anthropology, sociology, economics and history to back her argument, she found the meaning of sexual politics and sexual power in literature. She eschewed prior schools of literary criticism and declared her own criticism a "mutation": "I have operated on the premise that there is room for a criticism which takes into account the larger cultural context in which literature is conceived and produced." Millett used contemporary literature to demonstrate her notion of "sexual politics". While other critics danced on the graves of dead writers, Millett dug some new graves herself. She especially concentrated on the works of D H Lawrence (dead but widely read as if he were a contemporary), Henry Miller (then living), Norman Mailer (then living) and Jean Genet (then living). While she discussed ancient, medieval and Renaissance literature in the west and eastern literature in general as bulwarks of misogynist hierarchy, she opened her book with three sex scenes, one each from Henry Miller's Sexus, Norman Mailer's An American Dream and Jean Genet's The Thief's Journal. She explicated the power dynamics in each sex scene - Genet being contrapuntal because he approached "sexual hierarchy from the oblique angle of homosexual dominance". She used Genet because he dealt with sexual oppression. Albany, NY 1971. Gay rights demonstration, on Capitol steps at first protest march. At podium, Kate Millett, behind Madeline Davis (with Buffalo Radicalesbians sign), Donald Licht (with Mattachine Buffalo sign) Davies, Diana, 1938- , 1938- -- Photographer When Millett wrote Sexual Politics, Miller, Mailer and Lawrence were the sages of sexual liberation. These writers were primary influences on the generation that came of age in the 1960s. It is hard now to understand the grip these writers had on the imagination. For the left and the burgeoning counter-culture, these were the writers of subversion. In fact, they helped to socialise a generation into believing that force and violence were valued elements of sex. Millett's analysis destroyed their authority. I cannot think of anyone who accomplished what Kate Millett did, with this one book. It remains the alpha and omega of the women's movement. Everything that feminists have done is foreshadowed, predicted or encouraged by Sexual Politics. Andrea Dworkin (September 26, 1946–April 9, 2005), radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women. Myra Kovary, Kate's friend, says "please add that Kate's papers are housed at Duke University." Kate's website.. www.katemillett.com COMMENTS: jcvfa@aol.com Back to Table of Contents

MURIEL FOX - FEMINIST ICON CO FOUNDER of NOW, PUBLIC RELATIONS EXECUTIVE, CO FOUNDER AND LEADER OF NOW LDEF/LEGAL MOMENTUM AND CHAIR OF VETERAN FEMINISTS OF AMERICA ©Linda Stein -- Muriel Fox Limited Edition Fine Art Print Muriel Fox was born February 3, 1928 in Newark, New Jersey, one of two children of Morris Fox and Anne Rubenstein. Her father was a grocer, her mother a housewife. She stated at a Mother's Day rally for the ERA in 1980 that her mother's unhappiness as a housewife was a major inspiration for her activism in the feminist movement. Her brother, Gerald became a lawyer and served as VP of NOW's NY chapter and was the attorney who met with the New York Times to persuade them to desexigrate their Help Wanted ads. Jerry died in 1988 at age 55. Always an A student, Muriel worked after school in her family's grocery store and twirled in her high school's twirling brigade at football games. "I was terrible," she remembers. Because of Jerry's rheumatic fever the family moved to Miami Beach. This led Muriel to become a scholarship student at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. There she became a string correspondent for United Press, covering events like the 1946 Conference on the Atomic Bomb and World Government. She transferred to Barnard College in New York City, in 1946, majored in American Studies and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude in 1948. After college she was an advertising copywriter for Sears Roebuck in New York, then a publicist for Tom Jefferson & Associates in Miami, Florida, where she headed the Dade County re-election campaign of U.S. Senator Claude Pepper and helped elect Miami Mayor William Wolfarth. Applying for a job at Carl Byoir & Associates, the world's largest public relations agency in 1950, she was rejected by an officer who said, "We don't hire women writers." But she persisted and later that year another Byoir executive hired her as a publicist in its Radio-TV Department. In 1952 she was head of that department, and in1956 became Byoir's youngest vice president, and "progressed as far as she could go," she was told, "because corporate CEOs can't relate to women." There she remained until the 1970's when, with her help, NOW had changed the laws and the business climate for all women. Muriel became Executive Vice President of Byoir, the same title as the man who had turned her down in 1950. Dr. Shepard (Shep) G. Aronson Receiving VFA Medal of Honor at VFA's 30th Anniversary Celebration of NOW, Barnard College 1996 ) In 1955 she married Dr. Shepard G. Aronson, a prominent internist. Their children, Eric and Lisa, now Dr. Eric Aronson and Dr. Lisa Aronson Fontes were born in 1960 and 1961. Muriel continued working until the night she gave birth and returned to work soon after. Shep, who was a feminist and very supportive of her work was elected Chair of the board of NYNOW. When someone asked him what he was doing in the feminist movement Shep replied, "I want my wife to make more money." Shep died in 2003. In 1963 Muriel, as an officer of American Women in Radio and Television arranged for Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique to be their luncheon speaker. After Betty's talk Muriel sent a thank-you note to Betty saying.. "When you're ready to start an organization to fight for women's rights please call me to help." Betty did call. And Muriel was at the National Organization for Women's founding conference October 29, 1966. In the next two years, as NOW's public relations director she orchestrated the nationwide publicity effort. An interesting aside… Shep and their two children were with her in DC and while Muriel was busy at the founding meeting in Washington, DC, Shep babysat. From the next few years Muriel was NOW's vice president, then chair of the board, then chaired the National Advisory Committee. She was also Betty Friedan's main lieutenant and director of operations. She installed Friedan's NOW secretary at a small desk near her own at the Byoir offices and wrote numerous letters sent by NOW under Friedan's signature to government officials demanding faster action to reduce sex discrimination - including the letter that helped persuade President Lyndon Johnson to sign Executive Order 11246 in October 1967, the order that added sex to Affirmative Action and thus opened up America's corporate pipeline for millions of women. She also wrote NOW's November, 1968 letter to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission explaining the need to prohibit sex-segregated Help Wanted ads. Her testimony to Congress included proposed laws to equalize company pension contributions for women and men. Muriel also had to strike a balance between the interests of Byoir's clients and those of the women's movement. She rescued herself from NOW deliberations whenever they considered suing Byoir clients. In 1975 she organized a meeting between NOW officers and Byoir client "Sesame Street," which headed off a planned NOW boycott while also obtaining a commitment for increased participation of female characters on the influential TV show. In 1967 Muriel helped found New York NOW, the first chapter of the national organization. Carl Byoir promoted Muriel to group vice president in 1974 and to executive vice president in 1979, the first and only female excutive vice president the company had. At the same time she served as president of Byoir subsidiaries ByMedia (communications training) and ByMart (smaller accounts). Business Week Magazine's list of 100 Top Corporate Women in June 1976 described her as the "top-ranking woman in public relations." She retired from Byoir in 1985, and served on the board of directors of Harleysville Mutual Insurance Company from 1976 to 2000, chairing its Audit Committee, and on the board of Rorer Pharmaceuticals from 1979 to 1993, chairing its Nominating Committee. Muriel retired as NOW's PR VP in 1969, but remained very active in the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund (now Legal Momentum), which she co founded. In 1979 she created NOWLDEF's annual Equal Opportunity Awards Dinner, and she chaired it for 22 years with co-chairs including a roster of corporate America's foremost CEOs. She worked with Elinor Guggenheimer founding in 1974 the Women's Forum, an organization of pre-eminent women from diverse fields, and was its second president in 1976-78. In a CBS-TV interview she credited the Forum with "transforming the word network into a verb." For VFA she has organized and co-chaired many conferences, including the Salute To Feminist Authors and Salute To Feminist Artists. She is Senior Editor of "Feminists Who Changed America," with the biographies of 2,200 pioneers of the Second Wave. She chaired the November 15, 2006 all-day VFA conference at Columbia University and Barnard College that celebrated the book's publication by University of Illinois Press. In speeches Muriel urges successful women to abandon their old roles as "Queen Bee" in a man's world, and instead to support organizations that combat sex discrimination against all women. To advance this goal she served on the founding steering committees not only of NOW and The Women's Forum but also the National Women's Political Caucus, Child Care Action Campaign, the Women's Economic Round Table, American Women in Radio & Television and Foremost Women In Communications. Her most frequent speech line is a call urging successful women to say, "Yes, I am a feminist." For NOWLDEF she organized and chaired The National Assembly on the Future of the Family (1979) convening 2,100 civic leaders in the first public forum that highlighted the modern-day transformation of the once-traditional American family; and The Convocation on New Leadership in the Public Interest (1981) to win allies for the women's movement among leaders of business, labor, government and public policy. Senator Maurine Neuberger In 1965-68 she was co-chair, with Senator Maurine Neuberger, of Vice President Hubert Humphrey's task force on Women's Goals. In 1983-84 she served on the Marketing Committee of President Reagan's Advisory Council on Private Sector Initiative. She served as a director of United Way of Tri-State, American Arbitration Association and the International Rescue Committee. Muriel was elected president of the Rockland Center for the Arts in 2004, and led the Center for four years in its major campaign for expansion and renovation. She is currently the Center's vice president for administration. She has appeared on television frequently -- including a two-week debate series against William Buckley on "Firing Line" on the topic "Resolved: Women Have It Better Than Men." She has lectured throughout the world on such topics as Communications, Family Trends, the Women's Movement, Networking and "Moving Women Up the Corporate Ladder." In 1991 the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund created the Muriel Fox Award for Communications Leadership Toward a Just Society. The first winner of the "Foxy" was Muriel Fox herself. In 1996 the Fund surprised her with an "Our Hero" award "For a Lifetime of Dedication to the Cause of Women's Equality." She was the first recipient of New York State NOW's Eleanor Roosevelt Leadership Award, in 1985; and that same year Barnard College selected her to receive its Distinguished Alumna Award. She was the first woman to receive the "Business Leader of the Year" Award from Americans for Democratic Action and the first public relations executive to win the Achievement Award of American Women in Radio & Television. She received the Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications and the Woman of Accomplishment Award from the Wings Club. She received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Rockland County Family Shelter, the Woman to Women Award from New York State NOW, and the Carolyn Lexow Babcock Award from Rockland County NOW. Today, at age 82, Muriel Fox continues as one of the most active and important leaders in the feminist movement. Back to Table of Contents