Bra Burning

A brassiere, or bra, is an article of clothing considered as an undergarment that covers, supports and elevates the breasts. It is traditionally viewed as a symbol of a young girl’s coming of age. It is also a feminine icon, wherein women wear it to observe modesty or to present a certain image of femininity.

On the contrary, some see it as a symbol of repression of a woman’s body. Feminists interpreted the bra as a garment that deforms the woman’s body, or to shape them to conform to male expectations of what is desirable. This view gave rise to the bra burning myth.

One such account of how the bra burning feminism movement started can be traced back to the year 1968. A group of women were protesting the Miss America pageant and threw bras, girdles, high heels, make up and hairspray into a garbage bin as a symbol of their anger. They were protesting for the liberation of women in a male dominated society, and saw these objects as restrictive to their cause. The bin was set on fire, thus, giving reference to “bra burning”.

But no bra burning happened on that day, or on any other day. It was the time of draft card burning, where men burned draft cards in protest of being oppressed, coinciding with women throwing bras in trash cans. Media sensationalized these events, creating the burning bra news.

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The news was considered an insult to the feminist society, and women blamed an anonymous male for the insult. It turns out, however, that it was a female reporter who started the news. Lindsy Van Gelder was sent to do a humor piece on the draft card burning and feminist demonstrations. The result of her piece fueled the feminists, who demanded to be taken seriously.

There was a report on the New York Times quoting Robin Morgan saying they were going to do some bra burning. But there were no burning bras as well, just a symbolic, figurative bra burning. After that, bra burning publicity stunts were staged just to poke fun at the media hype surrounding the urban legend. In Chicago, models were paid to stand before the cameras and burn bras. The bra burning photos occasionally show up in books because uninformed photo researchers think they are the real thing.

But the myth of the burning bras continued, and question on why that myth is kept alive is another matter for women's history. None of the feminism acts ever mentioned an actual bra burning in the pages of history. Bra burning is figurative. The burning bra is now a symbol of liberation in the struggle of women’s rights.