Robin Morgan, Poet And Feminist Icon, Dies At 85

Robin Morgan, the poet, author, editor and leading second-wave feminist who rose to fame as a child star before becoming a powerful voice of the women’s liberation movement, has died at 85.

Morgan died Saturday, September 5, in New York after suffering a series of health problems in recent weeks, her son Blake Morgan said. He was her sole survivor. Her death came just days after that of her close friend and fellow feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem, who died on September 2.

Morgan was at the centre of several defining moments of second-wave feminism. In 1968, she helped organise the first protest against the Miss America pageant, where activists threw bras into a “Freedom Trash Can”. Two years later, she edited ‘Sisterhood Is Powerful’, a landmark anthology widely regarded as one of the essential texts of modern feminism.

Morgan was widely credited with popularising the feminist term “herstory” and the clenched-fist/female symbol associated with the women’s liberation movement. Her poetry collection ‘Monster’ and poem ‘Arraignment’, which targeted poet Ted Hughes over the death of Sylvia Plath, became notable works of feminist literature.

She wrote more than 20 books, including ‘Saturday’s Child’, ‘The Word of a Woman’, ‘Dark Matter’ and the 2023 poetry collection ‘Harvesting Darkness’. She also edited ‘Sisterhood Is Global’ and ‘Sisterhood Is Forever’.

Morgan served as editor-in-chief of Ms. Magazine from 1989 to 1994 and later became its global editor. She stepped down from that position shortly before her death, planning to devote more time to writing. Her unfinished projects included an essay collection covering the period from the September 11 attacks to the rise of AI, another novel and more poetry.

In 1984, Morgan helped establish the Sisterhood Is Global Institute. In 2005, she, Steinem and Jane Fonda co-founded the Women’s Media Center to support the visibility, viability and decision-making power of women and girls in media.

Born in 1941 in Lake Worth, Florida, Morgan began modelling at three, hosted ‘Little Robin Morgan’ at five and appeared on television’s ‘Mama’ from 1949 to 1957. She later became politically active in civil rights and anti-war movements.

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about 16 years ago, she continued writing and activism, drawing on the illness for several poems and a 2015 TEDWomen talk. The Women’s Media Center called her “one of the architects of the contemporary women’s movement.”