No More Miss America By Robin Morgan Essay

Miss America is a yearly pageant that goes on for any girl between the age of 17 to 24. There is a lot of people that enter this every year. Six beautiful and wonderful women have won from Oklahoma. Their life was so amazing when they found out they have won, some of them didn’t even know what to do. There is so much stuff they have to go through to get to enter in the pageant. After they do enter they are very busy with everything trying get to get ready for the big day. Miss America is a pageant that has been going on since 1921. It is something that some girls look forward to for when they are in High School or just got out of High School.

The women’s liberation movement (or feminism as it is now known) of the 1960s and 1970s touched every home, business, and school (WA, 705). The movement even touched the sports and entertainment industries, in fact, “There are few areas of contemporary life untouched by feminism” (WA, 717). The word feminism in the early 1960’s wasn’t often used and when it was it was used with condescension or hatred. However, in the late sixties that changed thanks to a new group of women. This new diverse group of women included the: young, old, heterosexual, lesbians, working class, and even the privileged. This diverse group came together and collectively created the second wave of feminism.

The first wave of women’s movements in the United States took place from approximately 1840 to 1925. When looking at this wave from the Liberal Ideology, they fought for women to have the right to vote, access to high education, equal employment opportunities and property rights. During this wave the infamous, and ground breaking, Seneca Falls Convention took place in New York in 1898. Here, 32 men and 68 women gathered to catalogue these specific events that women were not allowed to participate in. It is also during this wave that the Golden Globe Winning film Iron Jawed Angels, takes place.

The American people have been fighting for equal rights since the beginning of the county, however until August 18, 1920, about half of the population was not allowed to vote. The women’s suffrage movement, however, had been going for a while before then in speeches like “Ain’t I a Woman” given by Sojourner Truth in 1851 at the Women 's Convention held in Akron, Ohio. Truth speaks about the ways that men treat women as “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere.” as well as the hypocrisy of these sexist ideals since, “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain 't I a woman?” Truth’s speech demonstrates how the ways that women are treated are biased and seixst. Truth lived through slavery and fought for the rights of African Americans in the

In her essay she relates the rise of feminist consciousness in the 1960s to numerous changes in American society, especially the rise of other protest movements. Echols said, “On September 7, 1968, the sixties came to that most apple-pie of American institutions, the Miss America Pageant” (Echols, 308). The reason she said this was because one hundred women’s liberation activists descended upon Atlantic City to protest the pageant’s promotion of physical attractiveness as the primary measure of women’s worth. From there, the protestors set up a “Freedom Trash Can” and filled it with high-heeled shoes, bras, girdles, hair curlers, false eyelashes, typing books, and representative copies of Cosmopolitan, Playboy, and Ladies Home Journal. They wanted to burn the contents but couldn’t because of the laws for bonfires on the boardwalk. Also, word had been leaked to the press that there would be a symbolic bra-burning. However, there were no bras burnt that day. But the image of the bra-burning, militant feminists remains part of our popular mythology about the women’s liberation movement. The Miss America demonstration represents an important moment in the history of the sixties as well as the women’s movement (Echols, 309-310).

This book set the stage for liberation movements by describing middle-class women's isolation, even oppression, within the suburban household. The book described that women did not like the traditional role that society had given them (Grant 1). Three years after publishing her book, Friedan formed the National Organization for Women (NOW), demanding equal pay and support and enforcement of the prohibition of gender discrimination (USHistory.org 1). At the 1968 Miss America Beauty Pageant, women protested outside, throwing feminine products, such as fake eyelashes, bras, hair curlers, and high heels in trash cans. To end the pageant, protesters crowned a sheep the new Miss America.

After women won the right to vote, the second wave of feminism began in the 1960s and continued on to the 90’s. This wave was highly associated with the anti-war and civil rights movement and the movement started growing conscious to a variety of minority groups all over the world. Out of three waves, the second wave’s voice was increasingly radical and theoretical as sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues. Protest began in Atlantic City in 1968 and 1969 against the Miss America Pageant. Many activists thought it to be a degrading “cattle parade” that reduced women to only objects produced by the patriarchy. Along with fighting against sexism in cartoons and politics, second wave feminists found their voice among other movements such as Civil Rights and the Anti-War movement. While the first wave was fought by middle class white women, the second wave invited and incorporated women of color and developing nations demonstrating that race, class, and gender oppression were all related and seeking sisterhood and solidarity (Rampton).

Numerous areas of American life needed to be reformed in order for women to be equal to man. Many woman believed that a large issue in america was the sexualization and objectification of women. The Miss World Contest was found guilty of this crime. In 1968 hundreds of feminists showed up at the event to protest the contest that places imposible standards of beauty on women, and expects them to be pure and innocent but not celibate (Napikoski). Another large issue was violence and rape against woman.

The term second-wave feminism refers mostly to the radical feminism of the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. We start our presentation of second-wave feminism with the first harbinger of a new feminism and the most publicized event in the United States: the protests associated with the Miss America Pageants in 1968 and 1969 (Freeman, 1975; (as cited by Three Waves of Feminism, 2015). Inspired by the tactics of the more activist parts of liberal feminism, radical second-wave feminists also used performance (e.g., underground or Guerilla Theater) to shed light on what was now termed “women’s oppression.”Redstockings, the New York Radical Feminists, and other significant feminist groups joined the 1969 protest to show how women in pageant competitions were paraded like cattle, highlighting the underlying assumption that the way women look is more important than what they do, what they think, or even whether they think at all (Freeman, 1975; (as cited by Three Waves of Feminism, 2015). Marching down the Atlantic City boardwalk and close to the event itself, feminists staged several types of theatrical activism: crowning a sheep Miss America and throwing “oppressive” gender artifacts, such as bras, girdles, false eyelashes, high heels,and makeup,

In 1968, a group of insurgent feminists rallied out to gather around other women to help in a protest to fight against the hegemony of girls’ beauty in the annual Miss America’s Beauty Pageant. No More Miss America was an iconic pamphlet made to call attention to multiple degrading aspects of the beauty pageant. In it, Robin Morgan, a feminist protestor herself, argues against the dominant ideology of beauty in society. The New York Radical Women first thought of making this movement after realizing how the annual Miss America’s Beauty pageants were so similar to livestock competitions at county fairs. To prove this, the women put beauty pageant sashes on sheep and walked them around the boardwalk. The organization went through great trouble to protest their

Less than 100 years ago, the United States government did not allow women the right to vote. The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920 provided all citizens, regardless of gender, the opportunity to exercise this right. While this is a commonly known fact, it was only 47 years ago that a woman was not permitted to run in the Boston Marathon. The feminist movement was directly responsible for pivotal changes in our country. The belief that men and women should have access to equal rights and opportunities continues to affect our culture today. In this paper, I analyze how feminists have made countless improvements for women. As a female, high school varsity cross country/track runner, I was shocked to learn that the “powers that be” prohibited women from running in a marathon until Katherine Switzer bravely snuck in, entered, and finished one. Halfway through the incredibly exhausting 26-mile event, she thought to herself, “The reason there are no intercollegiate sports for women at big universities, no scholarships, prize money, or any races longer than 800 meters is because women don’t have the opportunities to prove they want those things.” (1967 Boston Marathon) She endured on-going verbal attacks from the race officiator and with pure determination finished the race knowing that if she did not, “people will say women can’t do it!” (1967 Boston Marathon) The effects of feminism have already had a direct impact on my life starting with the

We first decided on one thing: an issue in American society. America has been an underdeveloped country since the beginning and has now risen up to the most powerful economy. What society need not forget, in our thoughts, is the desperate times of America; where all hope was lost and chaos was onboard. Looking deeper into the topic at hand, we realized that women had experienced much prejudice and we in fact were that gender. Scanning through possible topics, we reached the National Organization for Women with their dedication from the start and start of the modern feminism wave.

We hear songs degrading woman and watch films were women are reduced to nothing more than eye candy, or just someone who’s only there to help the main male lead. One of the most show that degrades women are beauty pageants. Beauty pageants place women based on their looks, in the older pageants would give points based on the size of their head, torso, and limbs. A talk show host by the name of John Oliver mentions that most beauty pageants but points out the “Miss America Pageant” and how they claim to be the “World’s largest scholarship provider for women”. The Miss America pageants states that they give 45 million dollars towards scholarships. These type of beauty pageants aren’t always watch because of the contestants, but are watched because of the mistakes that would be showed, or how foolish the contestants look while answering questions. The show then states “Beginning with the Seneca falls convention in 1848 that’s the first wave feminism the perception of women in American has always been complex and fluid”. The way America sees women is very confusing, it could have started when women and African-Americans were denied the right to vote because they weren’t considered Americans because they could not provide for the

Today's feminist movement is in jeopardy of losing a following unless the woman at the forefront begin to identify with the fact that not every feminist is white, middle class, and cis-gendered. The modern idea of feminism has a fault in the way that its main idea seems to be fighting for equality of white women, this factor neglects every other woman in the world. This sets a double standard within the grouping of women as a whole just as women are fighting to abolish double standards set in place against sexes. This idea of white feminism simultaneously neglects the different problems of women of all demographics, while also grouping women together as a whole as if the struggles white women face are the same struggles all women face.

Even though beauty pageants form many issues, some people believe that pageants help girls with confidence and expressing one’s true self. Girls who attend pageants can be inspired to become a contestant and see that it is a time in where the girl is idolized and applauded for her beauty and grace, which can be appealing to girls who want to be appreciated for who they are. Miss America, a beauty competition which has become a massive organization, promotes positive standards for girls and women alike. “Miss America remains a role model to young and alike. Over the years, Miss America has continually made a difference in people’s lives throughout her charitable and community service endeavors, using her national platform to educate millions of Americans on important issues facing society. Miss America is more than a title, it’s a movement of empowering