Saturday's Child by Robin Morgan

Author:Robin Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781497678088
Publisher: Open Road Media

On the Boardwalk

I’ve written so often about what did and did not happen at that first protest that for those details I refer curious readers to The Word of a Woman. Suffice it to say here that No, we never burned bras (a myth perpetrated by an article in the New York Post likening us to the young radical men who were then burning draft cards), and Yes, we did crown a live sheep Miss America on the boardwalk (not one of my finest hours: it insulted the contestants and irked the ewe; my animal-rights consciousness had a long way to go). Also: No, I did not regret missing the Chicago “Days of Rage” for a moment, and Yes, to my amazement women arrived on the boardwalk from as far away as California and Florida, responding to pre-protest publicity, to join with us.9 Ken’s money was on the right bet: it was historic.

But at the time it seemed merely exhilarating. It was heady to be using the organizing skills I’d learned in the Left—getting the demo permit, booking the buses, writing the press releases, marking up the picket signs—but this time for ourselves, not for the guys. I even had buttons made, with a new feminist logo in red on a white background: a circle with a cross beneath (the universal sign for the female) and a clenched fist raised inside the circle. Almost a decade later, in Going Too Far, I finally came out of the closet and admitted having designed this symbol—which, astonishingly, has become the global sign for feminism. Since I draw badly, I’d described to Kenneth what I envisioned; he’d sketched it accordingly and skillfully; I’d had the first buttons pressed for the 1968 Miss America protest. Since then, I’ve seen the fist-in-the-circle-above-the-cross as graffiti in the Gaza Strip, Soweto, and Sicily; on rice-paper stationery in Nepal and posters in Rio, Manila, and Beijing; as jewelry in San Francisco, Sydney, and Tokyo; and on T-shirts sporting feminist slogans in most of the world’s languages. Women physicians’ organizations use it entwined with a caduceus. Women lawyers’ organizations show the fist grasping the scales of justice. Lesbian activists draw the circle doubled and linked. It keeps being reinvented, and always gives me a private smile. It will be ironic if this turns out to be my most enduring contribution to feminism.

But I could predict none of that back then, as I proudly pinned on the new-minted button and watched women snatch up and pin on theirs. Intoxicated with our own leadership and freedom, we picketed, leafletted, chanted, and sang all day outside the convention hall where the pageant was taking place. Ever-impertinent Florynce Kennedy held reporters captive with her sound bites about how racist the pageant was (at the time there had never been a black finalist), while others of us pointed out connections between the pageant and commercialism (Miss America hawks products), militarism (Miss America is always sent to cheer up the troops, wherever they are), and most basically, the sexual objectification of women.

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