100 Women: The truth behind the 'bra-burning' feminists

Fifty years ago, a protest against a Miss America beauty pageant in New Jersey sparked off the iconic - and mythical - image of the "bra-burning feminist".

A group of women hurled mops, lipsticks and high heels into a "Freedom Trash Can".

The idea was to symbolically throw away things that oppressed women, says Robin Morgan, one of the organisers. ers-by were invited to in.

"I one young woman took off her bra," Ms Morgan tells BBC 100 Women. "[She] eased it out from under her shirt and threw it in to great cheers."

It was a gesture that made headlines around the world, securing the protesters a place in history.

Although most of the women who took part in the Freedom Trash Can event had previous experience in the civil rights or anti-Vietnam War movements, none had ever demonstrated for women's rights before.

"We were young radicals, just discovering feminism because we were tired of making coffee but not policy," says Ms Morgan.

They had also realised that this was a fight they needed to take on themselves.

"We already knew that the male right was not our friend," she says.

"We thought the male left were our brothers [but] discovered that was not really the case when we talked about our own rights."

None of the women could have imagined that their protest would still have resonance, 50 years on.

"Some feminist historians mark [it] as the real beginning of the current wave of feminism," says Ms Morgan.

"[But] while flattering and quite lovely to hear, [it] is not true. There were already groups like the National Organisation for Women in existence."

But what stuck in the public consciousness about the protest was the image of the "bra-burning feminist" - something that paradoxically never actually happened.

Some women did throw underwear, including bras, into the Freedom Trash Can.

"They never burned them," says Ms Morgan.

It started with a line from a sympathetic female reporter - "Men burn draft cards and what next? Will women burn bras":[]}