Feminist Protest Origins
The New York Radical Women, organized in the fall of 1967 by former television child star Robin Morgan, Carol Hanisch, Shulamith Firestone, and Pam Allen, was searching for a suitable way to draw attention to their movement.
Hanisch said that she got the idea to target the Miss America contest after the group, including Morgan, Kathie Sarachild, Ros Baxandall, Alix Kates Shulman, Patricia Mainardi, Irene Peslikis, and Ellen Willis, watched a movie that depicted how beauty standards oppressed women. It included clips of Miss America parading in her swimsuit. "It got me thinking that protesting the pageant might be a good way to launch the movement into the public consciousness," Hanisch said. "Because up until this time, we hadn't done a lot of actions yet. We were a very small movement. It was kind of a gutsy thing to do. Miss America was this 'American pie' icon. Who would dare criticize this?" The group decided to incorporate the techniques successfully used by the civil rights movement and adapt it to the new idea of women's liberation. She
Read more about this topic: Miss America Protest
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