New York Radical Women

New York Radical Women was an early second-wave feminist radical feminist group that existed from 1967–1969. They drew nationwide media attention when they unfurled a banner inside the 1968 Miss America pageant displaying the words, "Women's Liberation".

The protest group was founded in New York City in the fall of 1967, by former television child star Robin Morgan, Carol Hanisch,Shulamith Firestone, and Pam Allen. Early members included Ros Baxandall, Patricia Mainardi, Irene Peslikis, Kathie Sarachild, and Ellen Willis. New York Radical Women were a group of young friends in their twenties who were part of the New Left, who had grown tired of the male-dominated civil rights and antiwar movements, and men who they saw as still preferring their female counterparts to stay at home.

New York Radical Women's first public action was at the convocation of the Jeannette Rankin Brigade. Members of the group led an alternative protest event, a "burial of traditional womanhood", held in Arlington National Cemetery. Kathie Sarachild wrote a flier for the keynote speech she gave at the convocation, and in this flier she coined the phrase "Sisterhood is Powerful".

The group also participated in the Miss America protest with their brochure No More Miss America in Atlantic City, NJ, on September 7, 1968. About 400 women were drawn together from across the United States to a protest outside the event. The women symbolically threw a number of feminine products into a large trash can. These included mops, pots and pans, Playboy magazines, false eyelashes, high-heeled shoes, curlers, hairspray, makeup, girdles, corsets, and bras, items the protestors called "instruments of female torture." Carol Hanisch, one of the protest organizers, said "We had intended to burn it, but the police department, since we were on the boardwalk, wouldn't let us do the burning." A New York Post story about the protest made an analogy between the feminist protest and Vietnam War protesters who burned their draft cards. It has been argued there was no bra burning, nor did anyone take off her bra. A local news story reporting on the event did report there was a burning of bras and other items. It said "as the bras, girdles, falsies, curlers, and copies of popular women's magazines burned in the 'Freedom Trash Can'..."

...
Wikipedia