‘We were tired of making coffee and not policy’

“We were tired of making coffee and not policy.”
— Robin Morgan

The feminist writer, editor and author Robin Morgan died in New York Saturday, just days after her colleague and fellow activist Gloria Steinem. They both got Ms. magazine running in the early Seventies, and Morgan — a prolific contributor early on — became editor-in-chief in 1989 at Steinem’s urging. Ms., which was competing on newsstands with other women’s magazines, went ad-free under her leadership, as a way of making it more editorially independent.

Morgan — whose work spanned the gamut from fiction to essays to poems to memoir — had a way of getting people’s attention. From the New York Times obituary (gift link included):

She coined the term “herstory” — history written from women’s point of view — and claimed partial credit for the slogan “the personal is political.” Her phrase “pornography is the theory; rape is the practice” became a rallying cry for the anti-porn movement.

Morgan was also an early labellee of the phrase trans-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF. She opposed the presence of a trans woman in the Seventies at a lesbian conference. However, she appeared to adjust her thinking. Interviewed by the Times last year in advance of her own obituary, she said, “I believe that trans rights are human rights.” (The author then noted she sighed and added, “It’s complicated.”)

The quote above comes from an interview Morgan gave at 65 to London’s Guardian, and it applies specifically to her reaction to supposedly progressive men in what was called the New Left in the Sixties who thought little of what women could contribute to the movement. I imagine the quote would resonate with many women whose intelligence and capability were diminished in different circumstances.