Kate Millett

Political Studies: Edexcel A Level, topic 18.3.2

Kate Millett 1934 - 2017

Kate Millett was an American radical feminist, credited for giving birth to radical feminism in her work Sexual Politics (1970).

Family – undoing the traditional family was the key to true sexual revolution.
Portrayal of women in art and literature – she showed how patriarchal culture had produced writers and literary works that were degrading to women.
Patriarchy - she developed this idea and how “rule by men” operated at all levels in the public and private sphere.

A patriarchal society was based on a strict hierarchy and male dominance, with sexual oppression passing from one generation to the next.
Men ruled women within the family, through property ownership and male inheritance and in government, by excluding women or determining the rules of power.
Socialisation of patriarchal attitudes occurred in the family and was reinforced through friends, schools, the media, wider society and culture e.g. in popular literature.

She proposed a sexual revolution to remove the patriarchal system e.g. rejecting romantic love and calling for an end to monogamous marriage and the traditional family.