Robin Morgan No More Miss America Analysis

September 7th 1968, a large protest was held at the Miss America Pageant. 150 women protested against the exploitation of women. This was one of the first protest of the Second Wave Feminism. The protesters mission was equality for women. This lead to future protest for equality for women of all

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, directed and produced by Mary Dore, is a film that documents the struggles that women within the United States endure concerning the historical lack of women’s rights. Prior to the Women’s Rights Movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s, a number of stereotypes about women existed within society that limited both their personal and professional progression. She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry – a modern adaptation and documentary of this period of emotional strife – pays tribute to the women who courageously fought in order to ensure that gender discrimination became an issue of America’s past. As a documentary film that succeeds in taking its audience down memory lane and establishing an activist approach to cinematically

To this day the women’s suffrage movement ignites women in the present to keep those right burning. Alice Paul and her fellow women suffrages demonstrated through speeches, lobbying and petitioning Congressional Committees, with parades, picketing and demonstrations, and with arrest that lead to imprisonment. These women express courage that women still uphold for years after their legacy has passed on, such as the article “Women’s Strike for Equality,” by Linda Napikoski, in the demonstration that was held on August 26, 1970 on the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage. As well as an article “Women to Protest For Equality Today,” by United Press that talks about on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the women’s suffrage and “declared war on firms that Damage the Image,” of the fair sex. Alice Paul, set the stage for inspiring women to fight for their rights everywhere across the world.

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 U.S. women’s movement had its beginnings in 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott called the Seneca Falls Convention in New York to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman (Women’s History in the U.S....). Over time, this inspired many women to stand up for their own beliefs and for the better for women in future generations. During World War I, the high birth rates led to food and supply shortages, and disease which mainly affected those in poverty (Putting Margaret Sanger’s Ideas in Context). At the time, a woman’s life revolved around bringing food home and onto the table which became an issue with the lack of supplies and the best foods would be given to men (Comstockery in America). As a nurse visiting, Margaret Sanger witnessed and met immigrant working mothers who were deeply impacted by unexpected pregnancies and botched miscarriages (Amory). Margaret Sanger violated the Comstock Act of 1873 of 1873 because she wanted to advocate women’s rights which resulted in a conflict between Sanger and the those against her ideas, and the laws that suppressed her from advocating. As a result, as a compromise of the amendment of the Comstock Act after she gained support from her article and supporters which resulted in Planned Parenthood, the ability to distribute contraceptives, and a new found support for women to have more control over their lives.

Each titleholder has a platform. A platform is a non-profit organization the young women can relate to or feel passionate about to make a difference. The title holders make appearances and hold events throughout their year of service. In addition to her personal platform, Miss America remains as a goodwill ambassador for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. This national platform provides the Miss America Organization the opportunity to not only raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, but to also raise extra money for the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen Scholarship Foundation. It increases exposure and awareness in both organizations. The driven women want to serve their community and be that role model to the younger generation. Young girls think Miss America is a real princess and watch her every move. The crown might look pretty and shiny, but it does so much more—it makes a

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).

The NHD theme this year was Exchange, Encounter, and Exploration and the Miss America protest was an encounter between the Women’s Liberation Organization and the Miss America Pageant. The encounter between them was the physical protest and it was the Liberation Movement trying to get across their message that beauty is what is inside not your makeup on the outside. It was also an exploration of women’s rights in 1968. In the 1960’s it was a big decade for Civil Rights, from this protest to Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement. It was a decade where people were starting to use their freedom of speech and

Although the post war economy, the invention of the pill, and the civil rights movement precipitated great change for American women, feminism also failed to achieve change by not resolving tensions of raising a family and trying to hold a job and not stopping marriage from crumbling into divorce. Even though women had become pilots, Supreme Court justices and astronauts, they still failed to “have it all,” by not resolving the tension for women trying to raise a family and hold a job (Collins 393). Failing to resolve this crisis, feminism’s inability to achieve change, left millions of women struggling to “have it all,” when 1980’s television made it seem within reach with women like Clair Huxtable. In fact, women’s inability to make change

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).

During the waves of feminism many influential and significant movements that depicted the representation of women in a patronizing way. Whether it began in the 1970’s or the 1990’s these decades both held its own on the matters of oppression and the exploitation of women. Rape culture as well as women’s clothing options were twisted into making these decades some of the most influential for women of all times. From the way women were dressed, to celebrities standing out, rape culture, or movements for women, controversy was created throughout these decades to put a dent in women’s history and truly impact women’s lives.

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.

Stansell (2010) noted, early in the women 's emancipation movement, which was profoundly embedded in the New Left, activists took an belligerent approach to their protests. Protests against sexism in the media vacillated from putting stickers saying "Sexist" on distasteful advertisements to embracing sit-ins at community media outlets, all the way to damage of newspaper offices p. 311. This method sometimes crossed the line into vulgarity, as at the 1968 sit-down outside the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, where activists avowed objectification of women by waving pejorative signs like "Up Against the Wall, Miss America." While the event fascinated widespread media coverage (and hurled the myth that feminists

The definition of feminism has been misconstrued and stamped with negative connotations. Bell Hooks, 2000 essentially suggests that generally people’s ideas of feminism has been a “third-hand,” in which people are ill-informed about the topic. The stereotypes and negative implications towards feminism is essentially all they know. For instance, in 1968 the day before the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, feminist women performed a symbolic rejection of all feminine accouterments as part of the women’s liberation protest