This must have slipped through the many more earth-shattering news reports from around the world, but it could be a very tiny step forward for women that the Miss America pageant announced the dropping of the swimsuit and evening gown competition. Gretchen Carlson, chairwoman of Miss America’s board of trustees, is quoted as having said, “We are no longer a pageant. We are a competition. We will no longer judge our candidates on their outward physical appearance…It’s going to be what comes out of their mouth that we’re interested in, when they talk about their social impact initiatives”.
Of course, one might then argue why have a beauty pageant at all? The women’s brains are tested enough in school, college and workplace; besides, what is the likelihood of a woman who does not fit conventional standards of beauty actually winning a beauty contest?
However, it is time to recall a beauty pageant, that fifty years ago, heralded the woman’s liberation movement and floated the derogatory term “bra burning feminist” when the truth is that no bra was ever burnt. It was meant to trivialise the protest and the movement in general.
In September 1968, the Miss America protest was held outside the venue of the beauty contest, by a group of feminists and civil rights activists. The feminist protest, organised by New York Radical Women, included tossing a collection of objects symbolising “instruments of female torture” — pots, pans, detergent, false eyelashes, mops, high-heeled shoes, curlers, hairspray, makeup, girdles, corsets, bras, copies of Cosmopolitan and Playboy magazines — into a Freedom Trash Can on the Atlantic City boardwalk. The things might have been set alight, but the protestors did not get permission to do so. A few of the women also sneaked into the venue and unfurled a banner emblazoned with the words “Women’s Liberation”.
The 400 or so women who had travelled from all over America marched with signs that said “No More Beauty Standards” and “Welcome to the Cattle Auction”; passed out pamphlets, including one titled “No More Miss America”, and crowned a live sheep, comparing the beauty pageant to livestock competitions at village fairs.
The pamphlet produced by the protesters saying “No More Miss America” asked women to help “reclaim ourselves for ourselves”. Written by Robin Morgan, a press release listed ten characteristics of the Miss America pageant that she believed degraded women. Most of them are still relevant, substitute Miss America with Miss India or Miss Any Country.
A female reporter Lindsy Van Gelder compared the act of feminist protesters tossing bras in the trash cans to Vietnam War protesters burning their draft cards. The headline of her report was, “Bra Burners and Miss America”. And those who needed an excuse to sneer at the women’s groups, labelled them “bra burning feminists” which turned into a cliché that refuses to go away.
The contest, too, refuses to go away, but, at least, the “cattle fair” aspect of it is somewhat diluted.
Deepa Gahlot is a Mumbai based columnist, critic and author.
