The bra-burning myth

Why has the image of the 1960s bra-burning feminist tattooed itself on our collective American memory? Perhaps for young feminists like myself it symbolizes a seminal moment in history when women threw off the shackles of unrealistic beauty standards and unfair domestic drudgery. And for the anti-feminists, for the sexists, it provides ammo for a shallow depiction of the dangerously liberated woman: an irrational (pyromaniacal?) person intent on destroying society as we know it for her personal gain.

Well, turns out that bra-burning never happened. According to a Ariel Levy's fantastic piece on feminism in last week's New Yorker, the myth originated at a 1968 protest of a Miss America pageant in Atlantic City (see the image above), in which "feminists tossed items that they felt were symbolic of women's oppression into a Freedom Trash Can: copies of Playboy, high-heeled shoes, corsets and girdles." Lindsy Van Gelder, a reporter covering the protests likened the moment to the "burning of draft cards at antiwar marches," writes Levy. "And a myth was born."

Feministing's Jessica Valenti also debunked the bra-burning bubbe meise in an interview with the New York Times Magazine's Deborah Solomon last week: "It was completely made up by the media," she says. "A couple of women protesting a Miss America pageant threw some bras into a garbage can, and somehow that became this longstanding idea of feminists as bra-burners."

Valenti's and Levy's assertion of bra-burning as the invention of an unfriendly, anti-feminist press will surely help to set the record straight when it comes to the history of the women's rights movement. But let's not write off the bra-burning myth as completely malignant to the feminist cause. Bra-burning might be an uninformed and overly simplistic image of 1960s feminism, but the idea itself is a galvanizing one. Bra-burning symbolizes intense anger at widespread oppression. And yes, we feminists are rational, thoughtful, calm and articulate people. But let's not apologize being angry. There was--and still is--plenty to be angry about. -Naomi

Sarah Palin against sexism

 

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is front and center in the news again for the publication of her first book, Going Rogue. She's actively pursued the media spotlight, to be sure, but I'm starting to feel sympathetic to Palin. This week's Newsweek cover takes the tendency to mock Palin's intelligence and focus on her body to new, and unacceptable, proportions. And it has finally prompted Palin to acknowledge and speak out against sexism.

In an unusually articulate fashion, she explains on her facebook page what's wrong with the cover photo: "The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation." Out of context, all this photo shows is that Sarah Palin has nice legs and takes care of her body.

Newsweek's editor offers a weak defense and claims that "we chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard." I've yet to see a similar cover photo, however, that exposes and brings attention to a male politician's body to this degree. While I agree with the narrative thread that has followed Palin that attacks her political views and inexperience, the narrative of her legs doesn't belong in the political arena. And finally we have Palin herself calling it what it is: sexist. -Sara