Ellen Jane Willis (December 14, 1941 – November 9, 2006) was an American left-wing political essayist, journalist, activist, feminist, and pop music critic.

[1] In the late 1960s and 1970s, she was the first pop music critic for the New Yorker, and later wrote for, among others, the Village Voice, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Slate, and Salon, as well as Dissent, where she was also on the editorial board.

[4] She was a strong supporter of women's abortion rights, and in the mid-1970s was a founding member of the pro-choice street theater and protest group No More Nice Girls.

[citation needed] In several essays and interviews written since the September 11 attacks, she cautiously supported humanitarian intervention and, while opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq,[5] she criticized certain aspects of the anti-war movement.

Occasionally she wrote about Judaism itself, penning a particularly notable essay, for Rolling Stone, in 1977, about her brother's spiritual journey as a Baal Teshuva.

Her contemporary Richard Goldstein characterized her work as "liberationist" at its heart and said that "Ellen, Emma Goldman, and Abbie Hoffman are part of a lost tradition — radicals of desire.

Christgau, Joe Levy, Evelyn McDonnell, Joan Morgan, and Ann Powers have all cited her as an influence on their careers and writing styles.

[14] On April 30, 2011, a conference at New York University, "Sex, Hope, & Rock 'n' Roll: The Writings of Ellen Willis",[15] celebrated her anthology and pop music criticism.