A Quote by Hilda Scott

At the demonstration of sixty feminists against the Miss America Pageant in 1968, when the women filled a trash can with bras, girdles, curlers and spike-heeled shoes, the bra-burning myth was launched by the media and, in spite of its inaccuracy and spiteful intent, put radical feminism on the map.

Hilda Scott

Quote Topics

Against America Bra Bras Burning Demonstration Feminism Feminists Filled Girdles Intent Map Media Miss Miss America Myth Pageant Put Radical Radical Feminism Shoes Sixty Spike Spite Spiteful Trash Women

Quote Author

Hilda Scott
Author
Born: 1915

Bra-burning never happened. It was completely made up by the media. A couple of women protesting a Miss America pageant threw some bras into a garbage can, and somehow that became this longstanding idea of feminists as bra-burners.

Jessica Valenti

I get very frustrated when I hear women saying, "Oh, feminism is passé," because I think feminism means empowerment. Men can be feminists, too! Many men are feminists. We need feminism. It's not against men; it's about the empowerment of women. It's the respect of women - giving women equal rights, the same opportunities.

Annie Lennox

Something I say a lot when it comes to anti-feminist stereotypes is that they exist for a reason. The stereotypes of feminists as ugly, or man-haters, or hairy, or whatever it is - that's really strategic. That's a really smart way to keep young women away from feminism, is to kind of put out this idea that all feminists hate men, or all feminists are ugly; and that they really come from a place of fear. If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down.

Jessica Valenti

I think feminism has always been global. I think there's feminism everywhere throughout the world. I think, though, for Western feminism and for American feminism, it not so surprisingly continues to center Western feminism and American feminism. And I think the biggest hurdle American feminists have in terms of taking a more global approach is that too often when you hear American feminists talk about international feminism or women in other countries, it kind of goes along with this condescending point of view like we have to save the women of such-and-such country; we have to help them.

Jessica Valenti

They always say the Miss America Pageant isn't a beauty contest, it's really a scholarship program. If that's the case, why don't we just put all the contestants on 'Jeopardy!' and pick Miss America that way? At least you get the smartest one.

Jay Leno

There are many feminists who work in the media, and they think that feminism is very important. It is in their own lives, but mostly feminism has had an impact among privileged women in the advanced Western countries. For the most part, it hasn't begun to touch the lives of poor and working women in the Third World, and that distresses me.

Doris Lessing

The stereotypes of feminists as ugly, or man-haters, or hairy, or whatever it is - that's really strategic. That's a really smart way to keep young women away from feminism, is to kind of put out this idea that all feminists hate men, or all feminists are ugly; and that they really come from a place of fear.

Jessica Valenti

Sex workers are the last women police stand in to protect. Sex workers are the last people that room is made for in many ways. You get a different kind of feminism if you put people at the margins at the center. It's a recently resonant lesson, but black feminists have been saying this for decades. Now when I talk to people engaged in sex workers' rights advocacy and people who identify as intersectional feminists, this is the air they breathe. We can't just make feminism about improving the lives of all women. Because there is no such thing as all women and universal female experience.

Melissa Gira Grant

Miss America is a scholarship pageant, and they actually define themselves as a talent pageant.

Shanna Moakler

For me feminism is bra-burning lesbianism. It's very unglamorous.

Geri Halliwell

When I grew up, feminism wasn’t something that was really talked about. There’s a really negative stereotype about feminism in the media. That really plays badly for young women understanding the movement. Maybe people don’t want to identify themselves as feminists because of the label. But people need to understand what feminism means and educate themselves before they reject it.

Julie Zeilinger

There have been women who stumbled across Feministing randomly, through a bizarre Google search or something, and had no idea what feminism was. They thought it was something older women do, or bought into the hairy bra-burning man-hating stereotype 100 percent. Anything that deviates from that is very exciting for them.

Jessica Valenti

In place of equal respect, the nation offered women the Miss America beauty pageant, established in 1920-the same year women won the vote.

Susan Faludi

The first time I was asked whether women can "have it all" was at the Miss America pageant. I said no. I didn't mean that women shouldn't fully pursue their dreams, only that we need to be honest with ourselves.

Gretchen Carlson

Most of these feminists are radical, frustrated lesbians, many of them, and man-haters, and failures in their relationships with men, and who have declared war on the male gender. The biblical condemnation of feminism has to do with its radical philosophy and goals. That's the bottom line.