About Crystal’s Bra Burning in Mississippi
Crystal over at Boobs, Injuries, and Dr. Pepper re-posted a year-old post, responding to criticism about Crystal, and the role some ignorant goof thought that women should play. The title of the post is ‘If I Set My Bra On Fire, Mississippi Would Be Gone By Morning‘. But the title did catch my attention.
I must be getting old. I forget — why did anyone want to burn bras in the first place? How was that symbolic of ‘liberation’? I mean, in the history of men-dominated religions and governments (i.e., the Bible, Quoran, etc.) the brassierre was a really recent invention. Much later than the swimsuit or french maid costume, and none of those got burned. At least, Victoria’s Secret still seems to be in business. Was it *really* a *guy* that decided, “Hey, if your chest doesn’t bruise mine when you hug me, you don’t have worth as a person”?
As I understand current advertising, boobs, shapes of boobs, boob enhancement etc. is to get his attention, not to establish a person’s worth. So what does burning accomplish, except create some toxic smoke from the plastics, nylon, etc.? I just don’t get that part at all.
I mean, I just got done re-watching ‘She’s The Man’ (sort of an update on ‘Just One Of The Guys’). I have no trouble reckoning a person’s worth by the honor of their word, the care they take for family and community, and the joy in their lives. (I liked ‘My Chauffer, too, but then I also like ‘Hamburger the Motion Picture’. Go figure.)
I remember 40 years ago there was bra burnings in some places, but the Rochester topless picnicers just a few years ago still got arrested for ‘indecent exposure’ (the courts reversed the ruling, there is nothing indecent about boobs, covered or not). Don’t women still wear blouses and tops cut to emphasize cleavage, go to great lengths to wear strapless dresses and arcane undergarments — is that really because a man told them they had to?
I guess the gesture seems silly to me, or maybe devastatingly incomplete, as gestures go. I get it, that going bra-less (like women did before the 1950′s) is not the same as half-way to a strip-tease. I get it that some women resented wearing the bra to shape their boobs like a girls, or bigger, or whatever, because they thought that looking girlish, or bigger, or whatever was needed to fill a role in the home and society.
But there was never any realistic follow through. The girls I grew up with scrambled and schemed to wear makeup and training bras as soon as they could get away with it. If we let our kids think this is ‘grown up’, then burning bras never settled anything.
And I still think it was a strange gesture to make. I mean, I assume the women doing the burning actually bought most of the bras being burned. I just don’t get it.
If you had ever had to wear a bra, you would understand why they need to be burned. Yes, women cave all the time to: shaving and having supported (and un-nippled, un-bouncy = untempting breasts). That doesn’t mean it’s any fun. Seriously, if you had to wear an athletic cup every day, I’m pretty sure you’d be standing in line to burn it as well.
Granted, I wear boxers. I have been active in public nude recreation (past member of the Naturist Society), so I know that people can and do survive and thrive without bras and athletic cups.
But why burn the things? After 40 years, why not simply stop buying the things?
I understood the first bra burnings, at least the way I remember they were reported in the 1960′s, was a declaration that feminists were renouncing the way society and fashion degraded the appearance and personal worth of women. The corollary was that women should be bosses and supervisors, workers in all lines of work with no bars because of gender.
So today we track the ‘glass ceiling’ of difference between wages to men and wages to women. Affirmative action has gotten many all-male cliques broken up, such as the AMA and Boy Scouts, although Girl Scouts is still ‘not for boys’, which I find a bit selfish and self-serving. After all, if girls need a single-gender environment to grow to adulthood properly, doesn’t that imply that boys, do as well? Or if the opportunities formerly restricted to boys was of such importance that keeping girls out of Boy Scouts was an inherent limitation to allowing women to grow fully, how is it that Girl Scouts doesn’t likewise provide a resource necessary for boys to have, to grow to a balanced taxpaying citizen and father?
I remember buying a gift for a lady friend, in St. Louis, MO. I had noticed her bra hanging in the bathroom on a visit one day, so I knew the size. I waltzed into the foundations department, and asked for the ‘most comfortable’ bra they had in her size. They showed me an under-wire thing. I figured the lady heard what I said, but instead gave me something that would be ‘more shapely’ or something. I repeated that I wanted something for her to wear for everyday, that would be comfortable for long hours. I still think that battle axe sales lady sold me something a long ways from the gift I wanted to give. I figured as long as she chose to wear the thing, I wanted to get something comforting. Call me stupid. My work moved me away from St. Louis shortly after, so I don’t know how the bra worked over time. I did not make a big gift of the thing, didn’t waste a holiday or anything. The impulse was similar to noticing a buddy missing his 15/16 ths box end wrench, and getting a nice one to fill out his wrenches.
I understand you find the things confining, uncomfortable, and the intent of the thing is degrading and manipulative. I understand buying a particularly fashionable bra both requires a superficial and low esteem (needs approval of others to find validation), and using such a ‘pretty’ undergarment perpetuates a dependence on a man’s good will for continued feelings of self-worth. In other words, damaging to women to make them buy them, and wearing them damages self esteem, too. And that it is the pressure of other women that force you to continue wearing the silly things, as men would adjust and be happy with whatever you decide to do.
So 40 years after these observations made national headlines (with reports of the horrid, acrid smoke of the fires, see, I remember that part, too!), why do women still buy the things, let alone talk about burning them?
I used to have very large breasts, and had to run wearing three bras.
Running with them was uncomfortable and annoying, but trying to do anything without support was really very painful, and I would probably not have done any strenuous exercise. A bind… heh… literally…
ANYWAY. My point: I’ve always seen the bra as a liberator of women – I suppose at the time they were burned, they might have been more constricting, or marketed as enhancing attractiveness over their supportive capabilities.
Alice, I don’t feel strongly about the choices women make about wearing bras. My question is about burning them, protesting them.
I think the devices that cause more social and psychological issues are the cross-your heart, the wonder bra, the ‘more shapely you’ garments. The styles that a woman uses to increase the sexuality of her appearance, so that her appearance will affect others.
You see, Brad, I do feel strongly about the choices women make about wearing bras. I think I may have been unclear – making it too personal. Essentially I agree with you.
I think that the choice of Bras as a symbol to burn was probably wrong. I think bras are a liberating thing – they physically give women freedoms that they would otherwise not have had. The choice to burn them was, as far as I can tell, an attempt to burn away the most obvious symbol of the feminine and all that was associated negatively with the feminine – frills, superficiality etc. Bras burn better and more spectacularly than lipstick.
Am I making any sense?
Thank you for such a thoughtful response—here’s the deal, I don’t KNOW how it is elsewhere, but where I live (central MN) if you don’t have (as we used to call them in camp) a titty slingy, you are subject to some pretty abject & open stares. It’s a big deal. I personally think they are an infringement, but I’d prefer that infringement to the judgments folks make for NOT wearing them…this is where I think wearing one becomes less voluntary, and yes, when I was a child in the 70s (and didn’t have boobs), I too, wondered why people wanted to burn the bras. It’s not the bras that need to be burned–it’s an attempt to escape the consequences of not wearing one. At least that’s my 2 cents.
Kat S., That particular aspect, I think, is less about tying women into their place, and the bra being a symbol of men/women requiring certain sexually oriented shapes and ‘presentation’ to be acceptable — as it is about body acceptance. That is, the bra has become so accepted/required since it’s invention (by an aerospace engineer, is the story I heard, to ‘perk up’ Marilyn Monroe’s breasts for a movie), that a bra’d appearance has changed from a flagrant sexual pose, to ‘required to be decently clothed’.
It is about the nipples. Usually you don’t see nipples from under a bra. And much of society, in spite of research showing between 25% and 50% of US adults have participated in some form of public nudity, now figures that the sight of the outline of a nipple (as NML put it, ‘smuggling peanuts’) is indecent. What you experience is very much related to recent laws they had to pass in NYC to allow mothers to nurse their baby on the subway.
I just got back from seeing Shrek the Third (my second viewing). The first time through I somehow missed the scene where the princesses bust out of their cell .. and burn a bra to prepare for battle. Five (5) women, one bra. And burning a bra still seems a silly symbolism to me.
Actually, the whole bra burning incident is a myth that serves to put feminists in a negative light. Calling a woman who has feminist view points a bra burner is a way of making light of her opinions.
I won’t agree to the term ‘myth’, since organized protests including publicly burning numbers of bras is a historical fact of the 1960′s in the US. The word you want, I think, is ‘label’.
Nope. The word I was looking for is ‘myth.’ I have never found any credible proof regarding the burning of bras as part of any feminist demonstration. And I’ve looked.
The closest to proof is an unsupported reference.
“Feminists burn their bras at the 1968 Miss America pageant, and millions elect to go braless.” About 3/4ths down the page at http://www.bikiniscience.com/chronology/1965-1970_SS/1965-1970.html. I saw several other references to protests and bra burnings at the 1968 Miss America pageant. As I said, I recall stories of bra burnings in the 1960′s in front-page articles in the Des Moines Register, in Iowa.
I understand the protest of Miss America and other beauty pageants. All parents, as well as feminists, should be protesting this practice. This is probably the single most insidious practice, reducing ‘success’ to being voted ‘pretty’, that maintains the perception of women being primarily adornment and accessories.
In 1968 the bra was still recent in America, about 10 years after it’s invention (to ‘enhance’ movie stars). The bra was seen, at the time, as being fundamentally decorative, similar to stiletto high heels. I think the bra today is seen as filling several other roles, from hiding nipples to make WASP’s more secure to reducing pain for some.
Here’s another article explaining the existence of the ‘story’ in newspapers across the country as well as identifying specifically how the rumor was started and how it became ‘fact’ in our collective conscience. It’s on page three of the pdf file. ‘The emergence of a myth: When journalists, and activists, got burned.’
http://www.utc.edu/Outreach/AEJMC-HistoryDivision/clio/clioarchives/cliowinter05.pdf
Thanks, I found another article about how the protesters at the 1968 Miss America pageant tossed various undergarments, not just bras, into a barrel to burn. But they were refused a burn permit, so no fire at the time. It seems close enough to me. All the symbolism and emotion was there, just a little bit short of the intended dramatic statement. Unfortunately, your linked page failed to load for me.
I understand that ‘feminism’ is intended to empower women to take whatever life role they choose, without cultural limitation. Yet ‘feminine’, ‘femininity’ are usually about frilly things, about sexual allure (drawing men, not finding a mate). The fact or legend of bra burning to ‘free’ women from male domination is symbolized by destroying an implement of mass market exploitation of sex appeal. I also understand the prurient misunderstanding of the reason for going braless, the ‘free’ movement of breasts, titillating to male libidos. ‘Bra burning’, fact or fiction, is about unbinding cultural bonds. Body acceptance is a different topic, and a value in it’s own right.