By Ann E. Menasche
The prolific writer and passionate radical feminist organizer, Robin Morgan, passed away on September 5th, 2026, leaving a rich legacy for future generations of feminists.
Known for her groundbreaking anthology “Sisterhood is Powerful” (she used the profits from that book to fund the first battered women’s shelters), and many other books and poems,. Robin was a product of the anti-Vietnam war, and civil rights Left of the 1960’s that birthed the Women’s Liberation Movement.
She was among the first to call out the Left for its sexism in an essay entitled “Goodbye to All That” and proclaim the right of women to organize in our own name for our own liberation. http://blog.fair-use.org/2007/09/29/goodbye-to-all-that-by-robin-morgan-1970/. Here is a short excerpt:
“Let’s run it down. White males are most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today. Yet who is controlling the supposed revolution to change all that? White males (yes, yes, even with their pasty fingers back in black and brown pies again). It could just make one a bit uneasy. It seems obvious that a legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most oppressed: black, brown, yellow, red, and white women–with men relating to that the best they can. A genuine Left doesn’t consider anyone’s suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom (and functioning as objectified prizes or coin
as well). Goodbye to all that.”
Words that are, sadly, still relevant to the misogynist Left today.
Robin cofounded radical feminists groups such as Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (“WITCH”)and New York Radical Women, the latter group organizing in 1968 the first protests against the Miss America Pageant for its treatment of women as sex objects.
She was also among the first to call out male cross-dressers, including men claiming to be women, for their arrogant intrusion into women’s identities and spaces, when she spoke at the 1972 West Coast Lesbian Conference. “No, I will call a malc “she;” thirty-two years or suffering in the androcentric society. and of surviving, have earned me the name “Woman”; onc walk down the streel by a male transvestitc, five minutes of his being hasslcd (which he may enjoy), and then he dares.to think he understands our pain? No, in our mothers’ names and in our own. we must not call him sister. ” Lesbianism-and-Feminism-Synonyms-or-Contradictions-by-Robin-Morgan-April-14-1973.pdf
In the 1980’s, she collaborated with French feminist Simone De Beauvoir on international feminist work, co-founding with De Beauvoir the Sisterhood is Global Institute. She also became editor in chief of Ms. Magazine.
In later years, she co-founded with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda the Women’s Media Center, supporting women in media, and hosted a podcast almost up till her death. Her activism never stopped.
You will not be forgotten, sister.