By Fine Print Staff
On Tuesday, Sept. 16 to the 19 the University of Florida campus chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Miss America Protest, a major landmark in the history of the feminist movement.
The group will have a display set up at the Reitz Union on Tuesday and at the Plaza of the Americas on Wednesday through Friday. The display will explain the history of the protest, the feminist critique of beauty standards and the work in which Campus NOW is currently engaged.
The Miss America protest of 1968 called attention to the fact that women were (are) tied down by unfair and unrealistic beauty standards that result in women being punished or rewarded based on looks alone (unlike men) and our self-worth completely wrapped up in our bodies. The protest was not against the women in the pageant. In fact, women’s liberation recognized that the women involved were simply working within the confines of a sexist system and making decisions based on their material realities. Indeed, the women in the pageant did not just become national icons for a year; they also racked up over $100,000 in scholarship and appearance fees.
The women’s liberation movement saw beauty standards as fitting in to the larger issue of women’s oppression. Women who are tied down to beauty standards are not free, in a similar way as women who cannot control their own lives through reproductive choices are not free. The Miss America protest was organized by the women’s liberation movement and was attended by women from all over the country, including Gainesville. The women threw bras, girdles, curling irons and more into a “Freedom Can.” The women were going to burn the can’s contents, but did not. Yet, this is where the term “bra-burners” came from. A New York Times article the day after the protest quoted Mall Dodson, the director of promotion for Atlantic City, as saying, “What kind of women would want to burn their bras?”
Apparently a lot of women were just that type. About one hundred showed up for the protest, angry with the way women were treated, refusing to talk to male reporters because, “It’s impossible for men to understand.” The protestors also saw talking to female reporters only as a way to give female journalists jobs. Protestors unfurled a large banner that read “Women’s Liberation” as the next Miss America was crowned Incidentally, 1968 was also the year of the first Miss Black America, a protest by black communities against the fact that since the pageant began in the 1920s there had never been a black contestant.
Campus NOW is currently involved in a campaign against sexist beauty standards, which is raising consciousness about how every day is still a beauty pageant for all women. Beauty standards are not about what the media and corporations are telling us to do, they are about how we are treated by men and society when we do or don’t do the very real work of making ourselves “beautiful.” True, standards of acceptable appearance exist for both women and men; however, for women, our entire self-worth – everything we have to offer society – is based on our looks. And when we don’t have that elusive perfect body, our families, friends, lovers and strangers ridicule us. Even if we attain the perfect look, we are still treated differently or not taken seriously – we become the ditz or the dumb blonde.
The whole system benefits men at the expense of women’s sanity, health, money and equality in society. True, I’m sure there are guys out there who simply don’t care what women look like, and are able to love women based on who they are as people. But it makes it easier for those men to get away with other sexist behavior, like not sharing in cost for birth control, housework or just being chauvinist pigs – because we feel like we better do whatever it takes to keep them, because who knows when we will ever find another guy who doesn’t care that we are overweight, have saggy boobs, or whatever the new standard of beauty is.
Looking good is a skill and a time and money investment. When I was 13, I spent countless hours and dollars on beauty magazines and in the cosmetics aisle of the store, while my brother tinkered around with tools and mechanics. Today, I can get the perfect wave in my hair, but my brother’s an engineer. I wonder what I could have done with that time and mental space.
And when women are around while men are complaining about “fat” women, or “ugly” women, or how their girlfriend doesn’t wear enough/too much makeup, or shaves too much/not enough, she is subtly reminded that she better keep off the extra pounds and not slack on her beauty routine or she will be the one they are talking about next time.
Campus NOW will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Miss America protest while analyzing the lessons from that protest. Things have changed for women over the past 40 years, and it is important to remember that women’s liberation pushed those changes forward. If all people know and learn is that change happened, without learning the how and the why – the history – then people will forget the very real strength we have to make changes. As the Redstockings Archives Distribution Project says, “Building on what’s been won by knowing what’s been done.” Campus NOW wants women to join them in the fight for liberation and to see how much more change is possible when we get together and do something about it.
To get involved with Campus NOW, call 321 427 0006 or email uf.cnow@gmail.com
Tags: Monthly Manifesto • National Organization for Women
