Miss America Archives - Public Seminar

The 1968 Miss America protests were the most public announcement of the start of the women’s civil rights movement

Fifty years ago a group of women -- mainly from New York -- wanted to stage a very public demonstration about women’s rights. They didn’t choose a political locale (i.e. Supreme Court or White House) or an economic one (i.e. the Fed or Wall Street), instead selecting a cultural setting. ...

Feature

Re-Dressing “No More Miss America”

The construction of fashion and feminism as antagonistic has been used to undermine the movement’s goals and to obscure fashion as a liberating political tool

September 9, 2018 • by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox

Fifty years ago, over a hundred women gathered on the boardwalk of Atlantic City to protest the Miss America Pageant. The demonstration, which was organized by the feminist group New York Radical Women (NYRW), protested the exploitative and racist nature of the pageant (black women were not allowed to participate ...