On Tuesday afternoon, 52 Miss America Contestants were welcomed to Atlantic City, New Jersey to kick off two weeks that will culminate in the crowning of the 2017 Miss America on September 11.USA TODAY
On a sunny day in September 1968, the Atlantic City boardwalk flooded with women armed with girdles, curlers, copies of Playboy magazine and bras. They threw these items — they called them "instruments of women-torture" — into a "Freedom Trash Can" as onlookers heckled them.
That protest, running alongside the Miss America pageant, brought the Women's Liberation Movement to the national spotlight. It's the kind of story that rarely shows up in the history textbooks — yet it became the battle cry heard by television viewers across the country.
Photo by Alix Kates Shulman of the Miss America protest, 1968tinyurl.com/oza53ag #WomensHistoryMonth
Unlike the politically charged, violent protests that rocked Chicago at the Democratic National Convention that summer, the Atlantic City protest was unexpected, creative and, in its unique way, jarring.
"Chicago is comparable to throwing a brick through the window of a police station," black civil rights lawyer and women's right activist Florynce Kennedy said, according to activist Robin Morgan . "The Atlantic City action is comparable to peeing on an expensive rug at a polite cocktail party. The Man never expects the second kind of protest, and very often that’s the one that really gets him uptight.”
Here are some of the little-known facts about how the protest went down:
1. There was no 'bra burning'
Over the years, the story is often recounted as protesters burning their bras. But that is simply not true.
The organizers did want to burn bras, magazines and other "instruments of torture" — products that objectified women's bodies and promoted traditional gender roles — similar to how Vietnam War protesters burned draft cards, participants say. They couldn't get the permit because the Atlantic City boardwalk was made of wood, so they just tossed these items into the "Freedom Trash Can."
Carol Hanisch, who is credited with coming up with the idea for the protest, recalled one protester quipped to a reporter that they were going to burn their bras, and the story took on a life of its own.
We have, in big part, Art Buchwald to thank for that. The nationally syndicated columnist picked up the "bra-burning" story, saying "dissent in this country has gone too far."
"'Bra-burner' became the put-down term for feminists of my generation, " Hanisch said. "The risqué implication of the term made the action embarrassing even to some feminists. I often say that had the media called us 'girdle-burners' nearly every woman in the country would have rushed to join us!"
2. Outside Miss America, a sheep became queen
Yes, really. As beauty queens competed for the crown inside the convention hall, protesters put a crown on a live sheep on the boardwalk, comparing the beauty pageant to livestock at the county fair.
The sheep crowning was one of several "guerilla theater" tactics protesters used to critique the pageant. They also auctioned a life-size Miss America that was chained to several protesters, suggesting women are "chained" to the beauty standards they're expected to uphold.
"Yessiree, boys step right up, how much am I offered for this number one piece of prime American property?" Dobbins asked, holding the Miss America puppet.
"Though it was historically an important part of our history, and spawned different opinions and internal disagreements afterward, the actual experience of being there for me was exhilarating and fun," said Bev Grant, who covered the event for Liberation News Service and NY Newsreel. "I felt free and brave and proud of what we were doing."
3. The protesters called out the pageant, not the contestants
Protesters were called "commies," "dykes" and "uglies," among other epithets, but some were also accused of being jealous of the Miss America contestants.
"We tried to engage the people on the other side of the police barricade if they were women," said Alix Kates Shulman, one of the organizers. "It was always our intention to organize, to support other women who might not have understood our ideas originally."
It probably didn't help that a couple of the posters said "Miss America Sells It," and "Miss America is a Big Falsie." In Hanisch's "Critique of Miss America" nearly three months later, she lamented that in some cases "Miss America and all beautiful women came off as our enemy instead of as our sisters who suffer with us. A group decision had been made rejecting these anti-woman signs."
But there were just as many, if not more, posters that said "All Women Are Beautiful," "Can Make-Up Hide the Wounds of Our Oppression?"and "Let's Judge Ourselves as People. The majority of demonstrators focused on the big picture, criticizing the lack of diversity among contestants and the limited opportunities for women, among other issues.
"We weren't trying to attack the contestants but win them over," Shulman said, "and I think we did win over a couple."
4. The protesters took on racism, militarism, too
In a news release preceding the protest, the group highlights a variety of critiques. There was the fact that neither a Black, nor a Puerto Rican or Hawaiian contestant had ever reached the finals. There was the expectation that the winner would act as a cheerleader for the Vietnam War, whether she believed in the cause or not. There was the perception that this was what a girl should aspire to become, while boys could dream of becoming astronauts or, perhaps, president. You can find all 10 points on the Duke University Libraries website.
Peggy Dobbins, who was arrested after spraying a can of Toni's on the pageant auditorium floor, said the Women's Liberation Movement was one that stood against racism and war as much as against sexism in the workforce and at home.
"Not only were they beauty standards, but they were racist beauty standards" at the pageant, Dobbins said, "and one of our biggest points was that all women are beautiful."
Although the pageant involved women of different backgrounds, sometimes the concerns of white feminists overshadowed those of minorities in the movement.
The same day as the protest, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held its first Black Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. Members of the black community allowed pageant protesters use a local meeting place to eat and rest, thanks to the black activist Flo Kennedy, according to Morgan. But Morgan and other feminists associated the new Black Miss America Pageant with all of the elements surrounding the largely white pageant.
"Morgan thought beauty was a burden, but Bonnie Allen and other black women realized that beauty was also a privilege long denied to their race," historian Linda Przybyszewski wrote years later in The Lost Art of Dress.
5. They refused to talk to male reporters
The organizers wanted coverage, but they didn't want it from an industry that relegated women to the features section and research library while men covered the news. Their news release ahead of the protest stated only newswomen would be recognized.
"That was one of our delicious decisions," Shulman said. "Of course, it was strategic. It was very smart too because we gave several women their first opportunity to cover a news story."
One of those women was Charlotte Curtis, a writer for the New York Times who had previously only been assigned stories for the society and women's pages.
The male reporters who did show up "verbally attacked us in a very unprofessional manner," Hanisch said. "They no doubt felt threatened because we had put out the word that we would talk only to female reporters."
Some hoped for sympathetic coverage, while others wanted to support female reporters. The effects of the demonstrators' strategy would be seen years later as female journalists broke through the barriers of the newsroom.
6. Protesters disrupted the contest
The photographs seen today capture the theatrics outside of convention hall, but protesters also managed to infiltrate the competition — one of the most popular televised events of the era.
A group of women, including Dobbins, got tickets for the front seats on the balcony. Dobbins recalled they waited for the TV camera to pan toward the audience and unfurled a banner with the words "Women's Liberation." Shortly after, Dobbins headed downstairs and sprayed the hair product.
Shulman wasn't part of the balcony stunt, but it brought her a personal victory. She had purchased some of the tickets, about $70 worth, using the bank account she shared with her husband. It was the first time she had written out a check without his permission.
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