Millett Urges Women to Oppose Draft

Kate Millett, feminist author of Sexual Politics and political activist, urged women to oppose the draft, confront international issues and pressure Harvard to tenure more women faculty, at the Kennedy School Forum Saturday night.

"Drafting women is particularly ironic in view of the fact that the government is not even proferring to us the bait of passing the ERA," Millett said. She said she opposes the draft because she believes "the volunteer army is sufficient." The draft would also perpetuate the inequality of women in the work force by forcing them to assume positions as typists and clerical workers, she added.

Never, Ever

"The business of drafting women is presented to us as if we are lucky if we win the right," Millett said, adding, "Women should say absolutely no draft, and we won't go--ever."

Millett also said women should oppose international patriarchy.

Everywhere

Citing Iran, the USSR, and Africa as examples, Millett urged women to recognize the universality of female oppression and to realize that "until we can begin to identify with the victims of brutality, we ourselves will go on being just that."

She urged women to support all oppressed peoples and to push the United Nations to recognize injustices which are currently disregarded as purely "domestic issues."

Here, Too

The ratio of tenured women faculty at Harvard to men is "abominable," Millett said, adding, "Harvard women are a classic case of being assimilated and smothered." Students at Harvard must refuse to be diminished, minimalized, and colonized by sexist practices, Millett urged.