"Ban the Bra"

On September 7th, 1968 Robin Morgan organized a protest at the Atlantic City Miss America pageant. Many women arrived with signs that read "welcome to the Miss America cattle auction". They also had signs depicting naked women with their body parts labeled like a piece of meat. Along with this, a "freedom trash can" was placed at the scene where women could toss out any items of theirs they deemed to be symbols of women's oppression.

Also that year, the SCRUM Manifesto was written by Valerie Solanas. This stood for Society for Cutting Up Men. The SCRUM Manifesto was written to show that men ruined the world and that women could fix it. This was a very radical work by a very radical women who eventually attempted to murder Andy Warhol. The manifesto begins ""Life" in this "society" being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of "society" being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex." Although it may have contained valid views on the current oppression of women, it was a bit too radical for many and was often not taken seriously. 

Many girls were beginning to realize that there was an actual problem with the way society was putting them down. This was when they knew they could take action. Besides participating in radical protests, they were going to school and getting into politics. Glamor magazine was producing articles about girls going to college. From 1955 to 1965 the amount of women earning degrees had doubled and to 1969 it tripled, only escalating from there.      

(Douglas, Susan J. "Throwing Out Our Bras." Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media. New York: Times, 1994. 139-61. Print)