The Bra-Burning Miss America Protest
The Miss America Protest, nicknamed the Bra Burning Protest, was an important act of civil disobedience that helped to push the women’s rights movement into the spotlight of the country. Like the name suggests, women organized a protest to object the Miss America pageant that was very popular during that time. Unlike its nickname and common myth, there were no bras burned. Even after over 50 years, the Miss America Protest is still important to current political events and the women’s rights movement that has grown in recent years.
On September 7th, 1968 the 42nd Miss American pageant took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Miss America pageant was subject to harsh criticism by women’s rights advocates. They disapproved of the way women were being treated and represented as sexual objects. They described the pageant as a cattle auction that showed the different animals that were available for purchase. However, the Miss America pageant was very popular. Some even described it as the “Super Bowl of beauty at that time” (Keller 1). To protest the event, a group of approximately 200 women traveled to Atlantic City. They came from New York, Washington, Michigan, Iowa, and Florida. It started out as a small protest in front of the pageant building. However, it rapidly grew in size and popularity and received much needed media attention. This protest was strategically planned and organized in order to draw light to a rising issue among women’s rights leaders in the United States.
Carol Hanisch, a member of the New York Radical Women, was one of the key organizers of the protest. She was already involved in the women’s rights movement and felt that, because of its popularity, the Miss America pageant “might be something good to protest” (Keller 2). She described the main purpose of the protest as bringing awareness to the women’s rights movement and to change the beauty standards that oppressed women. In order to bring attention to the standards of female beauty, the protesters threw bras, mops, kitchen appliances, and Playboy magazines into a large trashcan on which the words Freedom Trash Can were boldly written. The protestors described these items as contributing to the sexist und oppressive standards created for women.
Unlike its nickname suggests, there was no actual bra burning that took place. Although…
