Kate Millett, ‘Pillar of the Movement,’ Inducted
into Women’s Hall of Fame
By Mary Reinholz
Feminst
icon Kate Millett, a long time Bowery resident and author of “Sexual
Politics,” a seminal book on oppressive gender roles in literature,
received word yesterday afternoon that she and eight other American women,
including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and the late Republican
First Lady Betty Ford, have been named as inductees into the National
Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca, N.Y., site of the first women’s rights
convention in 1848.
“It’s a great honor — overwhelming and very
humbling,” Ms. Millett, 78, told The Local in a phone conversation from
her
loft
on East Fourth Street
, about an hour after she
received an e-mail announcing her as one of
nine inductees
.
TheNational Women’s Hall of
Fame
is a non-profit membership organization that has been recognizing the
achievements of prominent women in the United States every other year
since 1969. The group’s announcement of its 2013 inductees was timed to
coincide with the advent of Women’s History Month in
March.
Ms.
Millett, described variously in a prepared statement as a feminist
activist, visual artist, filmmaker, teacher and advocate for human rights,
will be officially inducted during a formal ceremony in Seneca Falls on
Oct. 12, joining 247 other American women who have been honored by the
group over the years for “enduring contributions to the nation” in the
arts, science, business, sports, government and philanthropy. Past
inductees include early women’s rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
tennis legend Billy Jo King, astronaut Sally Ride, Senator Barbara
Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, and comedienne Lucille
Ball.
“It’s
a spectrum from radicalism to establishment and we’re all honored and I
think it’s wonderful,” said Ms. Millett. Kate Millet (left)
with her companion Sophie Keir.
Beverly
P. Ryder, co-president of the Women’s Hall of Fame board of directors,
said the inductees were chosen from about 100 nominees and selected by an
independent national panel of judges, among them academics and members of
women’s and student organizations.
Ms.
Ryder, a retired corporate executive from Los Angeles, characterized Ms.
Millett as a “real pillar of the women’s movement. She’s considered one of
the great women of the 20th century.”
Jacqui
Ceballos, former president of the New York City Chapter of the National
Organization for Women, recalled Ms. Millett as a radical feminist who
belonged to several groups and also joined in NOW in 1967 even though that
group was considered conservative at the time. “Kate was always yelling
from the floor that we must do this and that and we supported her. The
officers in NOW told Betty [Friedan] that we were wild. Our group would
hang out at Kate’s loft in the Bowery, typing her booklet, ‘Token
Learning,’ about how the declared aim of women’s colleges aim was to
prepare women for their roles as wives and mothers. She led the
demonstration against The New York Times — and she really cracked the
whip. She also was active at Columbia and Barnard helping to start their
feminists organizations.”
Ms.
Millett, shown in her younger days with Ms. Ceballos in a recent
three-hour documentary on PBS on women’s history called “Makers,” said
feminism has come a long way since her early involvement. “And we
obviously have further to go,” she added. “We still earn a quarter of a
dollar to every man’s dollar.” As for women’s reproductive rights and a
new law in Arkansas severely restricting abortion to pregnant women at 12
weeks, she said, “It’s terrible but it’s bound to
challenged.”
As
for future projects, Ms. Millett said she hopes to publish a book on the
history of her mother and her mother’s sisters, who were Irish immigrants.
“It’s my family story,” she said. “My mother was also a feminist and
Catholic” who, she said, sold life insurance in her native St. Paul, Minn.
“She was a pioneer in life insurance in a big organization and she went
right to the top of her profession. She taught me and my [two] sisters to
be somebody. She really didn’t think gender was a hindrance and neither
did my father.”
With
that kind of background, Ms. Millett acknowledged with a chuckle, “I did
have confidence.”
Contact Eleanor Pam: eleanorpam@aol.com
Comments Jacqui Ceballos: jcvfa@aol.com