PRIMARY SOURCE EXERCISES - DOCUMENTS
FOCUS QUESTION
1. What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and economic issues?
The year 1968 was incredibly tumultuous. The political atmosphere was fueled by the tensions generated by the civil rights movement, as well as the Vietnam War. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy were both assassinated. Riots erupted across the country and gave strength to some of the more militant civil rights movements. The "women's liberation" movement that began in the 1960s took its cues from the civil rights movement. In the late sixties, the women's movement gained attention and strength in its effort to overturn deeply held assumptions about what roles women should play in American society. But not all women supported the changes advocated by feminists. Many were concerned about the loss of values and strengths associated with the roles women had traditionally held in society. In other words, the feminist movement experienced a heartfelt and serious backlash. These documents and images provide a glimpse into a very important moment in the evolution of women's rights.
DOCUMENTS
Document 1 is a protest statement from the Chicago Women's Liberation Union against the 1968 Miss America pageant.
Document 2 is a photograph of protesters at the 1968 Miss America pageant.
Document 3 is a speech by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, in response to the women's liberation movement.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Read Chapters 18 & 19 in H & W.
2. Read Documents 1 and 3 and look closely at Document 2.
3. Answer the questions that appear after the documents.
Document 1
Protest statement read at the 1968 Miss America pageant by the Chicago Women's Liberation Union (from CWLU Herstory project. Chicago Women's Liberation Union)
On September 7th in Atlantic City, the Annual Miss America Pageant will again crown "your ideal." But this year, reality will liberate the contest auction-block in the guise of "genyooine" de-plasticized, breathing women. Women's Liberation Groups, black women, high-school and college women, women's peace groups, women's welfare and social-work groups, women's job-equality groups, pro-birth control and pro-abortion groups--women of every political persuasion--all are invited to join us in a day-long boardwalk-theater event, starting at 1:00 p.m. on the Boardwalk in front of Atlantic City's Convention Hall. We will protest the image of Miss America, an image that oppresses women in every area in which it purports to represent us.
There will be: Picket Lines; Guerrilla Theater; Leafleting; Lobbying Visits to the contestants urging our sisters to reject the Pageant Farce and join us; a huge Freedom Trash Can (into which we will throw bras, girdles, curlers, false eyelashes, wigs, and representative issues of Cosmopolitan, Ladies' Home Journal, Family Circle, etc.--bring any such woman-garbage you have around the house); we will also announce a Boycott of all those commercial products related to the Pageant, and the day will end with a Women's Liberation rally at midnight when Miss America is crowned on live television. Lots of other surprises are being planned (come and add your own!) but we do not plan heavy disruptive tactics and so do not expect a bad police scene. It should be a groovy day on the Boardwalk in the sun with our sisters. In case of arrests, however, we plan to reject all male authority and demand to be busted by policewomen only. (In Atlantic City, women cops are not permitted to make arrests--dig that!)
Male chauvinist-reactionaries on this issue had best stay away, nor are male liberals welcome in the demonstrations. But sympathetic men can donate money as well as cars and drivers.
Male reporters will be refused interviews. We reject patronizing reportage. Only newswomen will be recognized.
The Ten Points We Protest:
1. The Degrading Mindless-Boob-Girlie Symbol
The Pageant contestants epitomize the roles we are all forced to play as women. The parade down the runway blares the metaphor of the 4-H Club county fair, where the nervous animals are judged for teeth, fleece, etc., and where the best "Specimen" gets the blue ribbon. So are women in our society forced daily to compete for male approval, enslaved by ludicrous "beauty" standards we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously.
2. Racism with Roses
Since its inception in 1921, the Pageant has not had one Black finalist, and this has not been for a lack of test-case contestants. There has never been a Puerto Rican, Alaskan, Hawaiian, or Mexican-American winner. Nor has there ever been a true Miss America--an American Indian.
3. Miss America as Military Death Mascot
The highlight of her reign each year is a cheerleader-tour of American troops abroad--last year she went to Vietnam to pep-talk our husbands, fathers, sons and boyfriends into dying and killing with a better spirit. She personifies the "unstained patriotic American womanhood our boys are fighting for." The Living Bra and the Dead Soldier. We refuse to be used as Mascots for Murder.
4. The Consumer Con-Game
Miss America is a walking commercial for the Pageant's sponsors. Wind her up and she plugs your product on promotion tours and TV--all in an "honest, objective" endorsement. What a shill.
5. Competition Rigged and Unrigged
We deplore the encouragement of an American myth that oppresses men as well as women: the win-or-you're-worthless competitive disease. The "beauty contest" creates only one winner to be "used" and forty-nine losers who are "useless."
6. The Woman as Pop Culture Obsolescent Theme
Spindle, mutilate, and then discard tomorrow. What is so ignored as last year's Miss America? This only reflects the gospel of our Society, according to Saint Male: women must be young, juicy, malleable--hence age discrimination and the cult of youth. And we women are brainwashed into believing this ourselves!
7. The Unbeatable Madonna-Whore Combination
Miss America and Playboy's centerfold are sisters over the skin. To win approval, we must be both sexy and wholesome, delicate but able to cope, demure yet titillating bitchy. Deviation of any sort brings, we are told, disaster: "You won't get a man!!"
8. The Irrelevant Crown on the Throne of Mediocrity
Miss America represents what women are supposed to be: inoffensive, bland, apolitical. If you are tall, short, over or under what weight The Man prescribes you should be, forget it. Personality, articulateness, intelligence, and commitment--unwise. Conformity is the key to the crown--and, by extension, to success in our Society.
9. Miss America as Dream Equivalent To-?
In this reputedly democratic society, where every little boy supposedly can grow up to be President, what can every little girl hope to grow to be? Miss America. That's where it's at. Real power to control our own lives is restricted to men, while women get patronizing pseudo-power, an ermine clock and a bunch of flowers; men are judged by their actions, women by appearance.
10. Miss America as Big Sister Watching You.
The pageant exercises Thought Control, attempts to sear the Image onto our minds, to further make women oppressed and men oppressors; to enslave us all the more in high-heeled, low-status roles; to inculcate false values in young girls; women as beasts of buying; to seduce us to our selves before our own oppression.
NO MORE MISS AMERICA
Source: CWLU Herstory project (Chicago Women's Liberation Union)
http://www.cwluherstory.org/no-more-miss-america.html
Document 2
Miss America Protest, 1968 (photograph)
Click to view larger image.
Source: Miss America Protest, 1969 Santi Visalli Inc./Archive Photos/Getty Images
Document 3
Phyllis Schlafly, "The Fraud of the Equal Rights Amendment," 1972
In the last couple of years, a noisy movement has sprung up agitating for "women's rights." Suddenly, everywhere we are afflicted with aggressive females on television talk shows yapping about how mistreated American women are, suggesting that marriage has put us in some kind of "slavery," that housework is menial and degrading, and-perish the thought-that women are discriminated against. New "women's liberation" organizations are popping up, agitating and demonstrating, serving demands on public officials, getting wide press coverage always, and purporting to speak for some 100,000,000 American women. It's time to set the record straight. The claim that American women are downtrodden and unfairly treated is the fraud of the century. The truth is that American women never had it so good. Why should we lower ourselves to "equal rights" when we already have the status of special privilege? The proposed Equal Rights Amendment states: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." So what's wrong with that? Well, here are a few examples of what's wrong with it. This Amendment will absolutely and positively make women subject to the draft. Why any woman would support such a ridiculous and un-American proposal as this is beyond comprehension.
Why any Congressman who had any regard for his wife, sister or daughter would support such a proposition is just as hard to understand. Foxholes are bad enough for men, but they certainly are not the place for women-and we should reject any proposal which would put them there in the name of "equal rights." It is amusing to watch the semantic chicanery of the advocates of the Equal Rights Amendment when confronted with this issue of the draft. They evade, they sidestep, they try to muddy up the issue, but they cannot deny that the Equal Rights Amendment will positively make women subject to the draft. Congresswoman Margaret Heckler's answer to this question was, Don't worry, it will take two years for the Equal Rights Amendment to go into effect, and we can rely on President Nixon to end the Vietnam War before then! Literature distributed by Equal Rights Amendment supporters confirms that "under the Amendment a draft law which applied to men would apply also to women." The Equal Rights literature argues that this would be good for women so they can achieve their "equal rights" in securing veterans' benefits. Another bad effect of the Equal Rights Amendment is that it will abolish a woman's right to child support and alimony, and substitute what the women's libbers think is a more "equal" policy, that "such decisions should be within the discretion of the Court and should be made on the economic situation and need of the parties in the case." Under present American laws, the man is always required to support his wife and each child he caused to be brought into the world. Why should women abandon these good laws-by trading them for something so nebulous and uncertain as the "discretion of the Court"? The law now requires a husband to support his wife as best as his financial situation permits, but a wife is not required to support her husband (unless he is about to become a public charge). A husband cannot demand that his wife go to work to help pay for family expenses. He has the duty of financial support under our laws and customs. Why should we abandon these mandatory wife-support and child-support laws so that a wife would have an "equal" obligation to take a job? By law and custom in America, in case of divorce, the mother always is given custody of her children unless there is overwhelming evidence of mistreatment, neglect or bad character. This is our special privilege because of the high rank that is placed on motherhood in our society. Do women really want to give up this special privilege and lower themselves to "equal rights", so that the mother gets one child and the father gets the other? I think not.
Source: Phyllis Schlafly Report 5, no. 7 (February 1972) "WOMEN'S LIBERATION AND OTHER MOVEMENTS." America in the Sixties--Right, Left, and Center: A Documentary History. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. The African American Experience. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2 Jun 2010. [online] Available <http://testaae.greenwood.com/doc.aspx?fileID=GR5516&chapterID=GR5516- 1320&path=/books/greenwood> 3 June 2010.