Comment
Comment
re: #20 lawhawk
It’s akin to bra burning - a liberating moment for Muslim women in Yemen.
Ahem
#4.
Feminist Bra BurningsThe Insanity:
For a few decades the “bra-burning feminist” was as much an archetype as the “dope-smoking hippie.” On The Simpsons, Marge met Homer because she was in detention for participating in a bra burning.
The story goes that at protests in the late sixties, feminists raging against the male-dominated world defiantly removed and set fire to their bras. It was a powerful statement, symbolically declaring the women’s desire for their feminine power to burst out of its patriarchal restraints and bounce free, no longer confined by the lace and spandex of traditional social mores.
But in Reality…This one literally never happened as far as anyone can tell. Women protesting against the 1968 Miss America contest in New York did toss several items into a trash can, including bras, girdles, high heeled shoes and women’s magazines, labeling them “instruments of torture.” But no fire was involved, except for the fire of burning feminine rage. Neither did the women actually remove their bras at the protest, inexplicably opting to gather the bras beforehand, and remain fully clothed.
It wasn’t long after the era of Vietnam protesters burning their draft cards, and a journalist or two presumably conflated one of the concepts with the other. After all, they’re all hippies, right?
Why Do We Believe It?
There’s the fact that it involves topless women. Even the Wall Street Journal knows you get more readers if you can tie the story to unrestrained titties. Also, most of us want to believe people with non-mainstream opinions are all on the far-out fringe, doing crazy things they’ll be embarrassed by later in life.
It saves us the trouble of listening to them. A woman demanding equal pay for equal work is making a point you have to address. A woman burning a bra and claiming it’s a torture device is just a silly sideshow you can safely dismiss after a few minutes of vigorous masturbation.
