Longtime feminist, socialist, author and activist Meredith Tax has died at the age of 80. She helped found a number of organizations, including the PEN American Center Women’s Committee, the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse and the Women’s World Organization for Rights, Literature, and Democracy. Her books include the novels “Rivington Street” and “Union Square.” She also wrote about the role of Kurdish women in her book, “A Road Unforeseen: Women Fight the Islamic State.” She once wrote, “Men are taught to be active, to go and seek what they need; not to look pretty and wait for it to come into their vicinity. Men don’t observe each passing cloud over human relations as if their whole future depended on it. There’s a reason for that. It doesn’t. Women are hyper-aware of their surroundings. They have to be. Walk down a street without being tuned in and you’re in real danger; our society is one in which men rape, mug and murder women whom they don’t know every day.” The words of Meredith Tax. She died on Sunday at the age of 80.