Mention women ’s lib and images of wild women drop theirbrasoverhead like lassos and then setting the breach garments on fire in all likelihood comes to mind . There ’s just one problem : Womendidn’t really burn their bras as part of the women ’s liberation movement in the seventies . bandeau burning , it turns out , is another one of America ’s longstanding clichés .
Before the 1968 Miss America Pageant , most Americans had never heard of the adult female ’s release movement . But on Sept. 7 , 1968 , a protest outside the Miss America Pageant at the Atlantic City Convention Center drew the nation ’s oculus . As meg of viewers tune in to watch the pageantry , they witnessed nearly 400 women carrying signs reading " No More Beauty Standards " and " Welcome to the Cattle Auction " as they decried the concept of beauty contest .
At the center of the commotion was the " Freedom Can , " a trash receptacle into which women thrust high heels , girdles , dish detergent , curlers , Playboy magazine and bras , call them " instrument of distaff torture . " Although the protesters intended to burn the items , they were ineffective to obtain a fire permit . In the ending , no bra ever went up in flame .
But that did n’t bar the protestors from earn a nickname that would stick well into the seventies and beyond : bra burners . The terminal figure was coined by reporters covering the women ’s liberation protest , who compare the women ’s liberation social movement to anti - war protester who burned draft cards and fleur-de-lis . Specifically , a narration in the New York Post cite to bandeau burning during the objection [ sources : American Experience , Greenfieldboyce ] .
The New York Post reporter , long assume to be a Isle of Man crumpled on trivialize the protest , was finally get word to be a woman . In the 1990s , Lindsy Van Gelder admitted she ’d given the " brassiere combustion " term its showtime . She tried to bolster the movement ’s lustiness by comparing it to the Vietnam War protest and writing about the " Freedom Can " was her way of enounce that the women ’s liberation movement was the equivalent of men cauterize conscription cards in protestation of oppression . The subtlety of the comparison were missed , however , when a headline author used " bra burning " – an image that was perpetuated many fourth dimension throughout the guarantee decennium [ informant : Levy ] .
While it ’s possible small protestation that occur during the 1970s may have let in the casual bra burning , it was never an prescribed part of the women ’s liberation move . Widespread bra burn in the 1970s seems to be nothing more than a myth .
