Meredith Jane Tax (September 18, 1942 – September 25, 2022) was an American feminist writer and political activist.

Early life

Tax was born on September 18, 1942, in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

, the daughter of Archie Tax, a physician, and Martha Brazy Tax. She attended

Whitefish Bay High School Whitefish Bay High School is a comprehensive public secondary school located in the village of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, United States. Enrollment is 947 students, in grades 9 through 12. The school newspaper, the ''Tower Times'', and the school ...

Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin Whitefish Bay is a village in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 14,954 at the 2020 census. History In the early 19th century when the first white settlers arrived, the Whitefish Bay area was controlled by Native A ...

, in 1960. In 1961, she represented Brandeis on ''

College Bowl ''College Bowl'' (which has carried a naming rights sponsor, initially General Electric and later Capital One) is a radio, television, and student quiz show. ''College Bowl'' first aired on the NBC Radio Network in 1953 as ''College Quiz Bowl'' ...

''. She was a National Merit Scholar and was in the twelfth graduating class of

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

in 1964. She spent the next four years at Birkbeck College, University of London, on Fulbright and Woodrow Wilson fellowships.

Career

Despite her "dreams of a gilded career in the arts", Tax gave up the idea of an academic career in favor of movement work and became a writer and an activist. After returning to the US, she became a founding member of

Bread and Roses "Bread and Roses" is a political slogan as well as the name of an associated poem and song. It originated from a speech given by American women's suffrage activist Helen Todd; a line in that speech about "bread for all, and roses too" inspired ...

, a socialist

women's liberation The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...

organization in Boston, and joined the October League. Tax's 1970 essay, "Woman and Her Mind: The Story of Daily Life", is considered a classic document of the US women's liberation movement. She is the author of a history book, ''The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880–1917'' (1980; 2001); two historical novels, ''Rivington Street'' (1982; 2001) and ''Union Square'' (1988; 2001), and a children's picture book, ''Families'' (1981; 1996, 1998), which was attacked by the Christian Coalition for its nontraditional approach to family structure. In 1995, she coauthored "The Power of the Word: Culture, Censorship and Voice", a pamphlet on gender-based censorship, with Marjorie Agosin,

Ama Ata Aidoo Ama Ata Aidoo, ''née'' Christina Ama Aidoo (born 23 March 1942) is a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright and academic. She was the Minister of Education under the Jerry Rawlings administration. In 2000, she established the Mbaasem Foundation t ...

Ritu Menon Ritu Menon is an Indian feminist, writer and publisher. Career In 1984, Menon co-founded Kali for Women, India's first exclusively feminist publishing house, along with Urvashi Butalia, her longtime collaborator. In 2003, ''Kali for Women'' sh ...

Ninotchka Rosca Ninotchka Rosca (born December 17, 1946, in the Philippines) is a Filipina feminist, author, journalist, and human rights activist. best known for her 1988 novel '' State of War'' and for her activism, especially during the Martial Law dictators ...

, and Mariella Sala. Tax's collected papers are at Duke University's Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture. Her oral history was done in 2004 by the Voices of Feminism program at the Sophia Smith Collection. She wrote ''Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights'', which criticizes left-wing support of right-wing Islamism. She also wrote many political and literary essays, for ''The Nation'', ''The Village Voice'', ''The Guardian'', ''Dissent'', ''openDemocracy'', and other publications. Some of these essays, and her blog, can be found on her personal website. Tax was a member of the

Chicago Women's Liberation Union The Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU) was an American feminist organization founded in 1969 at a conference in Palatine, Illinois. The main goal of the organization was to end gender inequality and sexism, which the CWLU defined as "the sy ...

, and was the founding co-chair of the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA), a pioneering reproductive rights organization. In 1986, Tax and

Grace Paley Grace Paley (December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007) was an American short story author, poet, teacher, and political activist. Paley wrote three critically acclaimed collections of short stories, which were compiled in the Pulitzer Prize and Na ...

were founding co-chairs of the

PEN America PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of litera ...

n Center Women's Committee; she later became inaugural chair of International PEN's Women Writers' Committee and, in 1994, was founding president of Women's WORLD, a global free speech network of feminist writers. In 2011, she became chair of the board of the Centre for Secular Space, a think tank and advocacy group with a mission to oppose fundamentalism, amplify secular voices, and promote universality in human rights. In 2022, Tax wrote about the need for a feminist movement on par with

Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to t ...

and

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police br ...

, which was disputed by the organizers of the

Women's March Women's March may refer to: * Women's March on Versailles, a 1789 march in Paris * Women's Sunday, a 1908 suffragette march in London * Woman Suffrage Procession, a 1913 march and rally in Washington, D.C. * Women's March (South Africa), a 1956 ma ...

Personal life

Tax was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and was married first to Jonathan Schwartz and later to

Marshall Berman Marshall Howard Berman (November 23, 1940–September 11, 2013) was an American philosopher and Marxist humanist writer. He was a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York and at the Graduate Center of the C ...

. She had two children, Corey Tax and Elijah Tax-Berman. She died on September 25, 2022 from

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a r ...

, in

Teaneck, New Jersey Teaneck () is a township in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a bedroom community in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 39,776, reflecting an increase of 516 (+1.3%) f ...

Books

* ''The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880–1917'' (1980; 2001). . * ''Rivington Street'' (1982; 2001). . * ''Union Square'' (1988; 2001). . * ''Families'' (1981; 1996, 1998). . * ''A Road Unforeseen: Women Fight the Islamic State'' (2016). .

References

External links

Full text of "Woman and Her Mind: The Story of Daily Life" by Meredith Tax

Full text of "The Power of the Word: Culture, Censorship and Voice" by Meredith Tax
with Marjorie Agosin,

, and Mariella Sala.
Meredith Tax at the Jewish Women's Archive

Meredith Tax's website

Women's WORLD

PEN American Center

Guide to the Meredith Tax Papers at Duke University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tax, Meredith 1942 births 2022 deaths American abortion-rights activists American feminist writers 20th-century American Jews American women's rights activists Jewish feminists Writers from Milwaukee 21st-century American Jews American political activists Jewish women writers Jewish American activists Activists from Wisconsin Brandeis University alumni Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London