Jewels in Her Crown: Treasures of Columbia University Libraries Special Collections

117.  Kate Millett (b. 1934).  Sexual Politics [Submitted in partial fulfillment of the Ph.D.]. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970. RBML

In her groundbreaking Columbia University dissertation, Kate Millett proposed an end to patriarchy. Using passages from Henry Miller, Jean Genet and Norman Mailer, Millett illustrated how men use sex to degrade women. Millett assailed romantic love ("a means of emotional manipulation which the male is free to exploit") and called for an end to monogamous marriage and the family. The late 60's and early 70's became the second wave of the fight for equal rights for women. At that time woman were only 3% of the lawyers in the country and 7% of the doctors, earning 59% of the salaries given to men for similar jobs. Millet used the $30,000 that she earned for the initial publication of Sexual Politics to establish the Women's Art Colony Farm for writers and visual artists.

Copy submitted for the Ph.D., 1970