Women & Words: The Bra-Burning Sham

Women & Words looks out how the phrase 'bra-burning' is inaccurately used to describe feminist activism and why it needs to be rectified...

Geri Halliwell's recent interview in the Guardian isn't the last or first time bra-burning has been used to describe feminist antics. Unfortunately, this imagery has been around since the 70s and been part of the discourse of anti-feminist rhetoric. So what's wrong with the phrase 'bra-burning'? Let's start at the beginning.

Technically, feminist activists never actually burnt bras during the 2nd wave movement. It all started back in 1968, when the Miss America beauty pageant was being held in Atlanta. The New York Radical Women had gathered to protest the pageant. They place a "Freedom Trash Can" outside and women started putting in items that they felt represented the societal demands of female beauty standards, such asmakeup, high heels, tights, girdles and...bras. Find out more after the jump.

There apparently was mention of lighting it all on fire but it never actually happened. The demonstration received a fair amount of coverage and comparisons were made with when men burnt their draft cards in protest of the Vietnam War.

Of course, the term 'bra-burning' made great headlines. For god sakes, it's referencing women's tits while sounding political at the same time, an editor's dream come true: sex and politics all wrapped up in a neat little bow. The term also was picked up and slid into regular discourse so easily because it coincided with going braless, an act which may seem outdated now, but at the time was extremely revolutionary.

But 'bra-burning' is now used as a derogatory term, not a revolutionary one. It implies a number of negative and inaccurate issues about feminist: that feminist are violent, that they don't care about how they look, and that they don't have anything more important to do than bitch about their underwear.

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