Lila Karp

{{Short description|American author, teacher, activist, and psychotherapist (1933–2008)}}

{{Use American English|date=June 2022}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2022}}

{{Infobox person

| image =

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| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth year|1933}}

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| death_date = {{Death date and age|2008|9|15|1933}}

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| nationality = American

| education = Antioch University

| occupation = {{hlist|Author|teacher|activist|psychoterapist}}

| years_active =

| notable_works = The Queen Is in the Garbage (1969)

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Lila Karp (1933 – September 15, 2008) was an American feminist author, teacher, activist, and psychotherapist. She is best known for her 1969 novel The Queen Is in the Garbage,[https://web.archive.org/web/20070812145050/http://feministpress.org/book/?GCOI=55861100408520] and is profiled in the book Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975.[https://www.amazon.com/Feminists-Who-Changed-America-1963-1975/dp/025203189X Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-197] at Amazon. Karp spent a decade living in London, where she wrote The Queen Is in the Garbage, before moving to New York City in the late 1960s.{{cite web|url=http://www.veteranfeministsofamerica.org/legacy/Obituaries.htm#In%20Memory%20of%20Lila%20Karp,%201933-200 |title=In Memory of Lila Karp, 1933-2008 |publisher=Veteran Feminists of America |accessdate=2020-12-05}} She was among the second-wave feminists in New York in the 1960s and was a member of The Feminists. This group included such notables as Kate Millett, Flo Kennedy, Ti-Grace Atkinson, and Margo Jefferson. Karp was featured in the 1977 documentary Some American Feminists.[http://www.citwf.com/film326649.htm]

Karp played a vital role in pioneering the field of Women's Studies at Princeton University, where she served as the director of the University Women's Center. She delivered a paper on the subject entitled "Women's Studies: Fear and Loathing in the Ivy League" at the National Women's Studies Association Meeting in 1979. She was appointed the co-director of The Institute for the Study of Women and Men at the University of Southern California in 1991.