Feminist movement writer Millett, 82

Kate Millett, a feminist writer and artist who gave the women’s liberation movement its intellectual cornerstone with the 1970 tract Sexual Politics, and whose later works laid bare the subjugation of gay men and lesbians, the mentally ill, the elderly and victims of political oppression, died Wednesday in Paris. She was 82.

Her death was confirmed by Phyllis Chesler, a feminist writer and psychotherapist who said she had corresponded with Millett’s spouse, Sophie Keir, and that the cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Millett was a contemporary of Gloria Steinem’s — the Ms. magazine co-founder was six months her senior — and along with Steinem became a driving force behind feminism’s “second wave” that transformed the movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

Sexual Politics, Millett’s debut book, emerged from her doctoral thesis at Columbia University. It posited that “every avenue of power within the society, including the coercive force of the police, is entirely in male hands,” and that “as the essence of politics is power, such realization cannot fail to carry impact.”

Millett’s book vaulted her to national renown. Time magazine featured her portrait on the cover of its Aug. 31, 1970, edition for a cover story about the women’s movement. The

New York Times described her at the time as the “high priestess of the current feminist wave.”

Katherine Murray Millett was born in St. Paul, Minn., on Sept. 14, 1934.

Millett worked as a sculptor and taught at universities including Barnard College in New York City, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and the University of California at Berkeley. She joined the National Organization for Women shortly after its founding in 1966 and chaired its education committee.