Introduction
The Miss America Pageant Protest is recognized as one of the most memorable events of the second wave of feminism that occurred between the 1960s and the 1980s. This wave included a variety of events and activities that were organized for the purpose of establishing gender equality and point at the challenges and irregularities that women in the United States faced on a daily basis. This paper reports the social, economic, and political context of the Miss America Pageant Protest that took place in Atlantic City in 1968.
The event involved two parts – one was intended to challenge the artificially promoted image of a “real woman,” the pressure and gender-based expectations it implied, and address one of the major sources of the flawed propaganda – the Miss America Pageant, and the organization of an alternative Pageant that only included Black contestants who traditionally were excluded from the larger competition. The paper will cover such aspects of the event context as the economic conditions, the political opportunity structure, the supporters and opponents of the movement, and coalitions formed locally and globally.
Economic conditions
When it comes to the economic context that accompanied the protests under discussion, it is important to focus on the years before and after 1968, as well as on that year in particular. Discussing the economic events that happened prior to the Miss America Pageant, one must remember about the dollar crisis and the fluctuating gold value – the most significant economic phenomenon that took place in 1968. In fact, these days, the researchers, historians, and economists recognize that crisis as the most serious one since the time of the Great Depression (Collins 396). The gold markets needed to be monitored daily and hourly for the decision-makers and state authorities to make the right choices and prevent the deterioration of the crisis; during that sensitive time, the state economies, as well as that of the United States, became so fragile that any mistake could cause a massive economic collapse of the entire Western world (Collins 396).
In particular, the dollar crisis in the United States that occurred in 1968 was represented by the deficit in the balance of payments that initiated in the 1950s and by 1968 had significantly diminished the gold reserves of the country (to be more precise, they dropped from 22.8 billion dollars in the 1950s to 12 billion dollars in 1968) (Mandel par. 4). In that way, the economy of the United States was seriously challenged by the crisis and threatened by the risk to become weaker than those of the counterpart states in Western Europe and its major rival, the Soviet Union (Mandel par 6).
In turn, the economic instability in the country resulted in the unsettled moods in the society that still remembered the consequences of World War II and began to worry about their jobs and income. In particular, the communities with limited earning opportunities, such as women, whose wages and chances to gain employment were weaker than those of men, started to feel particularly depowered and helpless. In that way, the increased activity of the feminist movements can be linked to the unstable position women had in American society petrified by the potential economic crisis.
Political opportunity structure
The 1960s are often recognized by modern historians as the decade of changes for women in the United States (Walsh par. 1). When it comes to the limitations created by the society for women, it is possible to notice that they were based on one widely spread core belief, that women:
- did not want to work in the non-female fields (female fields included nursing, teaching, and housekeeping);
- were unreliable workers because they could become pregnant and quit jobs at any moment;
- did not have families to support then thus did not need the jobs as much as men did.
With this belief dominating the American society, women tended to be excluded from the vast majority of career opportunities, especially in the fields that were dominated by men: science, medicine, economics, law, and politics. Therefore, self-realization was unavailable for many women because regardless of their college degrees in different specialties, they were reduced to the roles of servers, caregivers, and homemakers (Tavaana par. 3).
However, the problems of high-standard jobs and self-realization were principally the issues of well-educated middle-class white women, whereas the Black females of the United States faced a completely different set of challenges that added to their existing limitations based on their race. In that way, the political opportunity structure for the female community was weak due to their underrepresentation and isolation from the fields where they could potentially enforce change. The political and social activism of the representatives of strong women with goals was required. The old-fashioned image of a woman as a server and a homemaker was the major obstacle on the women’s path toward a stronger political position in the society.
Allies of and opponents to the movement
The protest directed against the artificially promoted image of what a woman should be and look like received a massive response in American society. To be more precise, the action was supported by a large number of individuals and communities, and also had powerful opposition. In particular, the media covered the protest of the pageant quite thoroughly and thus the activists and their messages were communicated to American citizens all over the country. In response, the people willing to support the protest started to join it, coming from the cities located nearby Atlantic City. The action had a powerful response from the American population. Its other allies were the other feminist movements with similar views and objectives. In fact, several additional feminist organizations took part in the protest; the most commonly known participants were the Women’s Liberation organization and New York Radical Women.
At the same time, the protest was opposed by the carriers of old-fashioned values and beliefs. In particular, multiple mass media presented the activists and their protest in a negative light, ridiculing their demands, intentions, and the activities that took place during the protest. Due to the action of burning the symbols of the social pressure on the women forcing them to conform to the conservative and limiting gender expectations feminists that actively express their points of view are still called “bra-burners” (“The Women’s Rights Movement” par. 52). This term was coined as associated with the negative image of feminism as a hostile movement attempting to diminish the value of men more than cultivating that of women or focusing on the actual equality. This distorted view of feminism and its purposes was achieved due to the misrepresentation of the Miss America Pageant Protest of 1968.
Coalitions and alliances (local and global)
As mentioned previously, during the 1960s, due to the political and social environment in the United States, the feminist movements could be generally divided by those aimed at addressing the issues that were important to the community of well-educated middle-class white women, and those of Black women. Differently put, regardless of the fact that both of these communities were interested in the promotion of women’s interests and equality, a coalition was impossible due to the intense social division (Taylor 16).
In fact, the pageant protest included two separate actions – white feminists promoting the new attitudes toward the image of a woman and her role in the society, and the black feminists promoting inclusion and integration of Black women into the society of the United States. Further, it was the Black feminist movement and organization that ended up forming a transnational coalition and founding an organization known as the Third World Women’s Alliance that was designed to protect and promote the rights of the depowered women of the third world countries in Asia and Latin America. That way, the Black feminists of the First World country such as the USA formed a collective identity with the depowered women in the Third World countries.
Conclusion
The feminist protest of Miss America Pageant occurred under very difficult political and economic conditions as the United States faced one of the most serious crises since the Great Depression. Moreover, the division between white and black feminists did not allow the two communities to form coalitions and fight for their goals together. In addition, the pageant protest was misrepresented by the opponents in the mass media; as a result, the event sometimes is used as a symbol of feminism as an obnoxious and aggressive movement.
Works Cited
Collins, Robert M. “The Economic Crisis of 1968 and the Waning of the “American Century”, The American Historical Review 101.2 (2010): 396-422. Print.
Mandel, Ernest. The Dollar Crisis. World Outlook 6.2 (1968): n.p. Web.
Tavaana. The 1960s-70s American feminist movement: Breaking down barriers for women. 2016. Web.
Taylor, Alice Elizabeth. Thinking With and Through the Concept of Coalition: On What Feminists Can Teach Us about Doing Political Theory, Theorizing Subjectivity, and Organizing Politically. Dissertation, University of California, 2015.
The Women’s Rights Movement. 2007. Web.
Walsh, Kenneth T. The 1960s: A Decade of Change for Women. 2010. Web.