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The '''Miss America protest''' was a demonstration held at the [[Miss America 1969]] (September 7, 1968), sometimes known as '''No More Miss America!''' The protest was attended by about 400 [[feminist]]s and separately, by [[civil rights]] advocates. The feminist protest, organized by [[New York Radical Women]] with [[Robin Morgan]] as the key organizer, included tossing a collection of symbolic [[feminine product]]s, pots, [[false eyelashes]], mops, and other items into a "Freedom trash can" on the [[Atlantic City, New Jersey|Atlantic City boardwalk]]. When the protesters also successfully unfurled a large banner emblazoned with "[[Women's Liberation]]" inside the contest hall, they drew worldwide media attention and national attention to the Women’s Liberation Movement.<ref name="Love2006">{{cite book|author=Barbara J. Love|title=Feminists who Changed America, 1963-1975|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kpNarH7t9CkC|year=2006|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-03189-2}}</ref><ref name="Buchanan2011">{{cite book|last=Buchanan|first=Paul D.|title=Radical Feminists: A Guide to an American Subculture: A Guide to an American Subculture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lx5TlteHLvAC&pg=PA124|accessdate=1 August 2012|date=2011-07-31|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9781598843576|pages=124–}}</ref>
A lesser known protest was also organized on the same day by [[Civil and political rights|civil rights]] activist J. Morriss Anderson. It was held at the [[Ritz-Carlton Atlantic City|Ritz Carlton Hotel]] a few blocks from the Miss America pageant. They crowned the first [[Miss Black America]].
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== Origin of "bra-burning" ==
The dramatic, symbolic use of a trash can to dispose of feminine objects caught the media's attention. Protest organizer Hanisch said about the Freedom Trash Can afterward, "We had intended to burn it, but the police department, since we were on the boardwalk, wouldn't let us do the burning." A story by Lindsy Van Gelder in the ''[[New York Post]]'' carried a headline "Bra Burners and Miss America."<ref name=vangelder>{{cite news|last=Van Gelder |first=Lindsy |title=The truth about bra-burners |work=Ms. |date=September–October 1992 |pages=80–81}}</ref> Her story drew an analogy between the feminist protest and [[Vietnam War]] protesters who [[Draft-card burning|burned their draft cards]].<ref name=vangelder/> A local news story in the Atlantic City ''Press'' erroneously reported that "the bras, girdles, falsies, curlers, and copies of popular women's magazines burned in the 'Freedom Trash Can'".<ref>{{cite news|last=Boucher |first=John L. |title=Bra-Burners Blitz Boardwalk |work=(Atlantic City) Press |date=September 8, 1968}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Campbell |first=W. Joseph |title=Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism |publisher=University of California Press |pages=109–110|isbn=9780520262096|year=2010}}</ref> Individuals who were present said that no one burned a bra nor did anyone take off her bra.<ref name="Collins, Gail 2003">{{cite book |last=Collins |first=Gail |title=America's Women |publisher=HarperCollins |location= New York |year= 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Duffett |first=Judith |title=WLM vs. Miss America |work=Voice of the Women's Liberation Movement |date=October 1968 }}</ref>{{rp|4}} However, a female reporter (Lindsy Van Gelder) covering the protest drew an analogy between the feminist protesters and [[Vietnam War]] protesters who [[Draft-card burning|burned their draft cards]], and the parallel between protesters burning their draft cards and women burning their bras were encouraged by some organizers including [[Robin Morgan]]. "The media picked up on the bra part," [[Carol Hanisch]] said later. "I often say that if they had called us 'girdle burners,' every woman in America would have run to join us."<ref name=Greenfieldboyce/><ref name="Collins, Gail 2003"/>
The parallel between protesters burning their draft cards and women burning their bras were encouraged by organizers including [[Robin Morgan]]. The phrase became headline material and was quickly associated with women who chose to go [[Brassiere#Bralessness|braless]].{{cn|date=July 2017}} This idea was reinforced by feminists like [[Germaine Greer]]. Shortly after she became a member of all-women's [[Newnham College, Cambridge|Newnham College]] in 1962, she shocked the faculty with her vocal condemnation of bras at a college event.
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Women associated with an act like symbolically burning their bra may be seen by some as law-breaking radicals, eager to shock the public. This view may have supported the efforts of opponents to feminism and their desire to invalidate the movement.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gold |first=Jodi |author2=Susan Villari |title=Just Sex: Students Rewrite the Rules on Sex, Violence, Activism, and Equality|location=Maryland|publisher=Rowman and Littlefield |isbn=0847693333|year=2000}}</ref><!--if citing opinion, use quotes --> Some feminist activists believe that [[anti-feminist]]s use the bra burning myth and the subject of going braless to trivialize what the protesters were trying to accomplish that day and the feminist movement in general.<ref>Lee, Jennifer [http://time.com/2853184/feminism-has-a-bra-burning-myth-problem Feminism Has a Bra-Burning Myth Problem] June 11, 2014 ''Time'' </ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Dow |first=Bonnie J. |title=Spectacle, spectatorship, and gender anxiety in television news coverage of the 1970 women's strike for equality|work=Communication Studies |volume=50|pages=143–57|year=1999}}</ref><ref name=burnbra/>
==Legacy==
The demonstration was largely responsible for bringing the Women’s Liberation Movement into the American national consciousness.<ref>Hanisch, Carol. "What Can Be learned: A Critique of the Miss America Protest." 2009. Web. 2 Feb 2012. http://carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/MissACritique.html</ref> The event “‘marked the end of the movement’s obscurity’ and made both ‘women’s liberation’ and beauty standards topics for national discussion.”<ref>Confronting the "Bra-Burners:" Teaching Radical Feminism with a Case Study. Beth Kreydatus. The History Teacher, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Aug., 2008), pp. 489-504</ref>
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