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Meredith Tax

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Meredith Tax
A smiling young white woman with dark hair
Meredith Tax, from a 1961 newspaper
Born(1942-09-18)September 18, 1942
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
DiedSeptember 25, 2022(2022-09-25) (aged 80)
Teaneck, New Jersey, U.S.
Alma mater
OccupationWriter
Known for
Spouses
Jonathan Schwartz
​
(divorced)​
​
(divorced)​
Children2

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

Early life

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Tax was born on September 18, 1942, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,[1][2] the daughter of Archie Tax, a physician, and Martha Brazy Tax. She graduated from Whitefish Bay High School in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, in 1960.[3] In 1961, she represented Brandeis on College Bowl.[4] She was a National Merit Scholar and was in the twelfth graduating class of Brandeis University in 1964.[5] She spent the next four years at Birkbeck College, University of London, on Fulbright and Woodrow Wilson fellowships.[6][7]

Career

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Despite her "dreams of a gilded career in the arts",[1] 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, a socialist women's liberation 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.[8] 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, Ritu Menon, Ninotchka Rosca, and Mariella Sala.[9][10]

Tax's collected papers are at Duke University's Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.[11] Her oral history was done in 2004 by the Voices of Feminism program at the Sophia Smith Collection.[12] She wrote Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights, which criticizes left-wing support of right-wing Islamism.[13] 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.[1]

Tax was a member of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, and was the founding co-chair of the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA), a pioneering reproductive rights organization.[1] In 1986, Tax and Grace Paley were founding co-chairs of the PEN American 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.[14] 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.[1][15]

In 2022, Tax wrote about the need for a feminist movement on par with Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, which was disputed by the organizers of the Women's March.[1]

Personal life

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Tax was Jewish and was married first to Jonathan Schwartz and later to Marshall Berman.[16][17] She had two children, Corey Tax and Elijah Tax-Berman. She died on September 25, 2022, from breast cancer, in Teaneck, New Jersey.[18][1]

Books

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  • The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880–1917 (1980; 2001). ISBN 9780853455493.[19]
  • Rivington Street (1982; 2001). ISBN 9780252070327.
  • Union Square (1988; 2001). ISBN 9780252070310.
  • Families (1981; 1996, 1998). ISBN 9780316832403.
  • A Road Unforeseen: Women Fight the Islamic State (2016). ISBN 9781942658108.[20]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g Italie, Hillel (September 29, 2022). "Meredith Tax, feminist author, dies at 80". Associated Press News. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  2. ^ "Meredith Tax papers-Duke University Libraries". Archives.lib.duke.edu. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
  3. ^ "24 Mar 1961, Page 4". Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. March 24, 1961. Retrieved September 28, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "Meredith Tax Selected to Represent Brandeis U. on 'College Bowl Quiz'". The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. November 17, 1961. p. 5. Retrieved October 2, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "1 May 1964, Page 4". Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. May 1, 1964. Retrieved September 28, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "1 May 1964, Page 4". Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. May 1, 1964. Retrieved September 28, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ "22 May 1964, Page 4". Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. May 22, 1964. Retrieved September 28, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Learning in the Dark". Jewish Currents.
  9. ^ "The website of Meredith Tax, writer and feminist organizer". February 11, 2022. Archived from the original on February 11, 2022.
  10. ^ Eleanor J. Bader (July 6, 2016). "Writer-Activist Meredith Tax Gives Voice to the Women Fighting ISIS". Lilith. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  11. ^ "A Decidedly Feminist Taxonomy: Meredith Tax Comes to the Sallie Bingham Center". April 10, 2012.
  12. ^ "Voices of Feminism Oral History Project: Tax, Meredith" (PDF). Retrieved January 19, 2017.
  13. ^ "The Ethics of Alliance and Solidarity: An Exchange Between Rafia Zakaria and Meredith Tax". Dissent. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  14. ^ The PEN Ten: An Interview with Laura Warrell (August 23, 2007). "Meredith Tax Pays Tribute to Grace Paley – PEN America". Pen.org. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  15. ^ Biography at The Nation.
  16. ^ "Meredith Tax and Marshall Berman, Writers, Wed". The New York Times. July 12, 1982. Retrieved March 13, 2019.
  17. ^ "Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. May 27, 2019. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  18. ^ Green, Penelope (October 6, 2022). "Meredith Tax, Feminist Author, Historian and Activist, Dies at 80". The New York Times. Retrieved October 6, 2022.
  19. ^ "When Our Great-Great-Grandmothers Led Historic Strikes Against Their Bosses & The Patriarchy". Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  20. ^ "The Rojava Women of the Middle East". Utne. November 13, 2017. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
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