No More Miss America

No More Miss America was the title of a brochure distributed in support of the Miss America protest that took place outside of the Miss America competition in Atlantic City, NJ in 1968.^[1] The brochure listed ten points that the organizers of the protest believed that the Miss America Pageant did to degrade women.^[1] It was also at this protest that the myth of bra-burning originated.^[2]

The protesters gathered up items they felt represented the oppression of women in America — high heels, curlers, girdles and bras — and placed them in a trash can.^[2] They talked about setting it on fire, but were stopped by local police, who said that it posed a hazard to the wooden boardwalk they were standing on.^[2] Later, some of the protesters got tickets to the event and unfurled a banner during the crowning ceremony that read, "WOMEN'S LIBERATION." They were removed after setting off smoke bombs.^[2]

The protest was led by the New York Radical Women.^[2] Because of the protest, the women's liberation movement was brought to the forefront of national attention.^[2]

Key points

The ten points in the brochure were:^[1]

1. The Degrading Mindless-Boob-Girlie Symbol. The Pageant contestants epitomize the roles we are all forced to play as women. The parade down the runway blares the metaphor of the 4-H Club county fair, where the nervous animals are judged for teeth, fleece, etc., and where the best "Specimen" gets the blue ribbon. So are women in our society forced daily to compete for male approval, enslaved by ludicrous "beauty" standards we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously.
2. Racism with Roses. Since its inception in 1921, the Pageant has not had one Black finalist, and this has not been for a lack of test-case contestants. There has never been a Puerto Rican, Alaskan, Hawaiian, or Mexican-American winner. Nor has there ever been a true Miss America — an American Indian.
3. Miss America as Military Death Mascot. The highlight of her reign each year is a cheerleader-tour of American troops abroad — last year she went to Vietnam to pep-talk our husbands, fathers, sons and boyfriends into dying and killing with a better spirit. She personifies the "unstained patriotic American womanhood our boys are fighting for." The Living Bra and the Dead Soldier. We refuse to be used as Mascots for Murder.
4. The Consumer Con-Game. Miss America is a walking commercial for the Pageant's sponsors. Wind her up and she plugs your product on promotion tours and TV — all in an "honest, objective" endorsement. What a shill.
5. Competition Rigged and Unrigged. We deplore the encouragement of an American myth that oppresses men as well as women: the win-or-you’re-worthless competitive disease. The "beauty contest" creates only one winner to be "used" and forty-nine losers who are "useless."
6. The Woman as Pop Culture Obsolescent Theme. Spindle, mutilate, and then discard tomorrow. What is so ignored as last year's Miss America? This only reflects the gospel of our Society, according to Saint Male: women must be young, juicy, malleable — hence age discrimination and the cult of youth. And we women are brainwashed into believing this ourselves!
7. The Unbeatable Madonna-Whore Combination. Miss America and Playboy's centerfold are sisters over the skin. To win approval, we must be both sexy and wholesome, delicate but able to cope, demure yet titillatingly bitchy. Deviation of any sort brings, we are told, disaster: "You won't get a man!!"
8. The Irrelevant Crown on the Throne of Mediocrity. Miss America represents what women are supposed to be: inoffensive, bland, apolitical. If you are tall, short, over or under what weight The Man prescribes you should be, forget it. Personality, articulateness, intelligence, and commitment- unwise. Conformity is the key to the crown — and, by extension, to success in our Society.
9. Miss America as Dream Equivalent To—? In this reputedly democratic society, where every little boy supposedly can grow up to be President, what can every little girl hope to grow to be? Miss America. That's where it's at. Real power to control our own lives is restricted to men, while women get patronizing pseudo-power, an ermine clock and a bunch of flowers; men are judged by their actions, women by appearance.
10. Miss America as Big Sister Watching You. The pageant exercises Thought Control, attempts to sear the Image onto our minds, to further make women oppressed and men oppressors; to enslave us all the more in high-heeled, low-status roles; to inculcate false values in young girls; women as beasts of buying; to seduce us to prostitute ourselves before our own oppression.

See also

• Feminist Sex Wars
• Sex-positive feminism

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/No-More-Ms-America.html
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/MissAm1969.html#photos