No More Miss America
Encyclopedia
No More Miss America was the title of a brochure distributed in support of the Miss America protest
that took place outside of the Miss America
competition in Atlantic City, NJ in 1968. The brochure listed ten points that the organizers of the protest believed that the Miss America Pageant did to degrade women. It was also at this protest that the myth of bra-burning originated.
The protesters gathered up items they felt represented the oppression of women in America — high heels, curlers, girdles and bras — and placed them in a trash can. They talked about setting it on fire, but were stopped by local police, who said that it posed a hazard to the wooden boardwalk they were standing on. Later, some of the protesters got tickets to the event and unfurled a banner during the crowning ceremony that read, "WOMEN'S LIBERATION." They were removed after setting off smoke bombs.
The protest was led by the New York Radical Women
. Because of the protest, the women's liberation movement was brought to the forefront of national attention.
Miss America protest
The September 1968 protest by feminists outside of the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey was largely responsible for bringing the term "Women's Liberation" into the American national consciousness...
that took place outside of the Miss America
Miss America
The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
competition in Atlantic City, NJ in 1968. The brochure listed ten points that the organizers of the protest believed that the Miss America Pageant did to degrade women. It was also at this protest that the myth of bra-burning originated.
The protesters gathered up items they felt represented the oppression of women in America — high heels, curlers, girdles and bras — and placed them in a trash can. They talked about setting it on fire, but were stopped by local police, who said that it posed a hazard to the wooden boardwalk they were standing on. Later, some of the protesters got tickets to the event and unfurled a banner during the crowning ceremony that read, "WOMEN'S LIBERATION." They were removed after setting off smoke bombs.
The protest was led by the New York Radical Women
New York Radical Women
New York Radical Women was an early second-wave feminist group that existed from 1967–1969.NYRW was founded in New York City in the fall of 1967, by Shulamith Firestone and Pam Allen. Early members included: Ros Baxandall, Carol Hanisch, Patricia Mainardi, Robin Morgan, Irene Peslikis, Kathie...
. Because of the protest, the women's liberation movement was brought to the forefront of national attention.
Key points
The ten points in the brochure were:- The Degrading Mindless-Boob-Girlie Symbol. The Pageant contestants epitomize the roles we are all forced to play as women. The parade down the runway blares the metaphor of the 4-H Club county fair, where the nervous animals are judged for teeth, fleece, etc., and where the best "Specimen" gets the blue ribbon. So are women in our society forced daily to compete for male approval, enslaved by ludicrous "beauty" standards we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously.
- Racism with Roses. Since its inception in 1921, the Pageant has not had one BlackBlack peopleThe term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
finalist, and this has not been for a lack of test-case contestants. There has never been a Puerto Rican, Alaskan, Hawaiian, or Mexican-American winner. Nor has there ever been a true Miss America — an American IndianNative Americans in the United StatesNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. - Miss America as Military Death Mascot. The highlight of her reign each year is a cheerleader-tour of American troops abroad — last year she went to VietnamVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
to pep-talk our husbands, fathers, sons and boyfriends into dying and killing with a better spirit. She personifies the "unstained patriotic American womanhood our boys are fighting for." The Living Bra and the Dead Soldier. We refuse to be used as Mascots for Murder. - The Consumer Con-Game. Miss America is a walking commercial for the Pageant's sponsors. Wind her up and she plugs your product on promotion tours and TV — all in an "honest, objective" endorsement. What a shill.
- Competition Rigged and Unrigged. We deplore the encouragement of an American myth that oppresses men as well as women: the win-or-you’re-worthless competitive disease. The "beauty contest" creates only one winner to be "used" and forty-nine losers who are "useless."
- The Woman as Pop Culture Obsolescent Theme. Spindle, mutilate, and then discard tomorrow. What is so ignored as last year's Miss America? This only reflects the gospel of our Society, according to Saint Male: women must be young, juicy, malleable — hence age discrimination and the cult of youth. And we women are brainwashed into believing this ourselves!
- The Unbeatable Madonna-WhoreMadonna-whore complexIn Freudian psychoanalysis, a Madonna–whore complex is a psychological complex that is said to develop in the human male when he sees all women not as individuals, but as either saintly Madonnas or debased prostitute-like personalities. This dichotomy limits women's sexual expression because it...
Combination. Miss America and PlayboyPlayboyPlayboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
s centerfold are sisters over the skin. To win approval, we must be both sexy and wholesome, delicate but able to cope, demure yet titillatingly bitchy. Deviation of any sort brings, we are told, disaster: "You won't get a man!!" - The Irrelevant Crown on the Throne of Mediocrity. Miss America represents what women are supposed to be: inoffensive, bland, apolitical. If you are tall, short, over or under what weight The Man prescribes you should be, forget it. Personality, articulateness, intelligence, and commitment- unwise. Conformity is the key to the crown — and, by extension, to success in our Society.
- Miss America as Dream Equivalent To—? In this reputedly democratic society, where every little boy supposedly can grow up to be President, what can every little girl hope to grow to be? Miss America. That's where it's at. Real power to control our own lives is restricted to men, while women get patronizing pseudo-power, an ermine clock and a bunch of flowers; men are judged by their actions, women by appearance.
- Miss America as Big Sister Watching You. The pageant exercises Thought Control, attempts to sear the Image onto our minds, to further make women oppressed and men oppressors; to enslave us all the more in high-heeled, low-status roles; to inculcate false values in young girls; women as beasts of buying; to seduce us to prostitute ourselves before our own oppression.