London, 7 September 2018<\/p>\n
Fifty years ago, a protest against a Miss America beauty pageant in New Jersey sparked off the iconic – and mythical – image of the “bra-burning feminist”.<\/p>\n
A group of women hurled mops, lipsticks and high heels into a “Freedom Trash Can”.<\/p>\n
The idea was to symbolically throw away things that oppressed women, says Robin Morgan, one of the organisers. Passers-by were invited to join in.<\/p>\n
“I remember one young woman took off her bra,” Ms Morgan tells BBC 100 Women. “[She] eased it out from under her shirt and threw it in to great cheers.”<\/p>\n
It was a gesture that made headlines around the world, securing the protesters a place in history.<\/p>\n
Although most of the women who took part in the Freedom Trash Can event had previous experience in the civil rights or anti-Vietnam War movements, none had ever demonstrated for women’s rights before.<\/p>\n
“We were young radicals, just discovering feminism because we were tired of making coffee but not policy,” says Ms Morgan.<\/p>\n
They had also realised that this was a fight they needed to take on themselves.<\/p>\n
“We already knew that the male right was not our friend,” she says.<\/p>\n
“We thought the male left were our brothers [but] discovered that was not really the case when we talked about our own rights.”<\/p>\n
None of the women could have imagined that their protest would still have resonance, 50 years on.<\/p>\n
“Some feminist historians mark [it] as the real beginning of the current wave of feminism,” says Ms Morgan.<\/p>\n
“[But] while flattering and quite lovely to hear, [it] is not true. There were already groups like the National Organisation for Women in existence.”<\/p>\n
But what stuck in the public consciousness about the protest was the image of the “bra-burning feminist” – something that paradoxically never actually happened.<\/p>\n
Some women did throw underwear, including bras, into the Freedom Trash Can.<\/p>\n
“They never burned them,” says Ms Morgan.<\/p>\n
It started with a line from a sympathetic female reporter – “Men burn draft cards and what next? Will women burn bras?”<\/p>\n
Local reporters from the time have said they remember that the can was set alight<\/a> but that “the fire was small, and quickly extinguished”. Ms Morgan is adamant there was no fire.<\/p>\n “It’s a myth that we’ve been trying to squelch for years,” she says, clearly exasperated at something she feels has trivialised what the protest was really all about.<\/p>\n Back in 1968, the Miss America pageant rewarded a very specific type of female beauty.<\/p>\n Although requirements that contestants must be “of good health and of the white race” had been abandoned almost two decades earlier, the pageant had never had a non-white winner.<\/p>\n “Since its inception in 1921, the pageant has not had one black finalist,” a press release for the Trash Can protest read. “There has never been a Puerto Rican, Alaskan, Hawaiian, or Mexican-American winner. Nor has there ever been a true <\/i>Miss American – an American Indian.”<\/p>\n Racism was one of the 10 aspects of the pageant that protesters set out to oppose.<\/p>\n Point number four on the press release referred to the “consumer con-game”, describing Miss America as a “walking commercial for the pageant’s sponsors”.<\/p>\n The title of the eighth protest point is The Irrelevant Crown on the Throne of Mediocrity.<\/p>\n “Miss America represents what women are supposed to be: inoffensive, bland, apolitical,” it reads. “If you are tall, short, over or under what weight The Man prescribes you should be, forget it.”<\/p>\n The Trash Can protesters set out to be “joyful, more than nasty”, says Ms Morgan. But looking back, there are things she would do differently now.<\/p>\n “We blamed the contestants too much,” she says.<\/p>\n “After all, they were mostly working-class women trying to get a free scholarship.”<\/p>\n The winner that year was Judith Ford [now Judith Nash], an 18-year-old from Illinois.<\/p>\n