Burn Baby, Burn

I am old enough to remember these times, but being a male, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

just heard a stat this weekend:

more and more men are having happier lives not being the sole breadwinner in the family, but now the female population is more unhappy having to go to work, like men have to

I was a stay at home mom. My husband and I agreed that it was important to raise our child with one of us staying at home. He could earn more money than I could and I was more suited to raising our child. I had the choice. My mother did not. My father died after they had two children and since that was in the fifty's, my mother had to raise my sister and I on a secretaries salary. My mother used to buy those single serving pot pies for a dime and all three of us shared it. We were that poor and I still remember that.

Personally, I feel that everyone should have a choice and most do not, being female. Now our lives are full of paying for that American Dream and both have to work. I think that we miss out on the real dream of being able to spend time with our loved ones.

Equal rights was about equal pay for equal work. We, women, are still not getting paid what our male counterparts are getting for the same work. Is that fair? I think not.

I agree Lela!!! There is no way my wife could ever realistically make the kind of money I made while working....so what really came out of this??? Forced everyone to go to work, so you can try to keep a good life...I mean try....

I was part of that generation. Fighting for equal rights was what every young woman did. Burning bras was not the norm, but standing up for your rights were.

What came of it? Almost nothing. Things have not changed that much. NOW is almost non-existant, having only one viable chapter that I have been able to find. We were called F*&^ing Women's Libers then, and we still are. There is Federal legislation protecting women from violence, but it is not enforced. If you are discriminated against in the work place, it is left up to the employer to investigate, and it is usually swept under the rug or you are discredited at work and forced to leave your job. It takes an army of women to prove anything. I know of a case where a manager locked all the servers in a refrige. When the investigators came in, the people interviewed where not even at work when the incident happened. The mangers are still there, but most of the servers are gone.

I'm not old enough to remember the bra burning but I dont think I would burn mine...I just bought them from Victorias Secret and they cost $40 each. So I would have to find another way to make a statement. I am too cheap.

SORRY wasn't old enough at the time

The burning of the bra was just a statement for liberation, which frankly I think backfired badly. I never burned mine because i was to busy trying to support a child by myself and bowing to whomever to make that happen.

I was...umm...well, let's just say that that was a decade before my /mother/ was born. xD I feel so very young.

I don't think anyone in my family partcipated in that either, though.

I didn't participate in this "movement", however I would burn mine just to be rid of it.

Was of that generation, but I marched to the beat of a different drummer.
Nothing was gained, except publicity.
I chose to be at home and have babies.
Very good article.

I was younger than the bra burners too. Not sure why they burned them but after having endured wearing the darned things for years I think its a good idea. As for the women's liberation movement, I was a feminist before I ever even heard that word used. I had a wonderful father and older brother that told me I could do and be anything I cared to dream.

I was too young to participate..but I think it was more as a form of symbolism than anything else. "We;ve come a long way baby" :)

Thankfully I was raised by an incredibly strong mom and independent woman. Who instilled in me a sense of confidence that I could do anything a man could do and sometimes do it better! LOL even though her father had firm views on a "woman's place. She took a lot of heat for raising independent females! Thank god!! :)

No, but I'd gladly do it now!

I wasn't born yet...but bras are too expensive to burn.

Back in the 60's the bras did not cost as much and they are not as fancy as they are now. These bras were bulky and constricting but this is not even the point of burning the bras. It was a demonstration that women be liberated from man. You know, the equal rights movement. We wanted to be able to stand on our own two feet and earn as much as our male counterparts. Equal pay for equal work. This something that we still do not have today.

I was too young for this era -- and nowadays I wouldn't be able to afford to burn my bras!

Lela,,, my parents would have killed me,,, and I was a newly married person ,,, no,,, and I didn't know anyone who did,,, didn't know much about it,,, I believe it didn't last long,,, a fly by night thing,,,

no I was just a child in the 1960's so I too did not understand, I thought it was dumb lol, I know too have caught up and believe wholeheartedly in the women's movement

LOL NOPE NOT ME

Nope....I was born in 73

I did not ever burn a bra, although I have gone without a few times. And not that many women actually did that--more a sound bite than a reality.

I wasn't around during this movement, but I burned my bra just the other day...of course it was by accident. Got a little to close to the stove. :) j/k

I would have to say though that I would definitely have joined the movement!

Like Sammie already said, I wasn't even born yet.

I saw the naked hippies, and the bra-burners, and the black panthers, and the grey panthers (old people, an ancestor of AARP), from my childhood, into my teen years, and still follow popular cultural groups.

I was both scared, and fascinated by the women burning bras, but I wasn't sure why. Perhaps because I had a typical boy's fixation with boobs, but most of the feminists hated men. They also dressed "frumpily," to the point that you couldn't tell if they were wearing a bra, or not.

My mother never went for the protest route, but she was as independent a woman as she could be, given her mental problems. She was from the WW II generation, and raised me to be a gentleman. This "bra-burning" stuff was outside her frame of reference, and hence outside of mine. If anything, she seemed "on the fence": sometimes she would seem supportive -"give 'em hell!" and other times she seemed indifferent to "the cause." I grew up supporting equal rights for women, while acting in ways that would get a 10 year old arrested today. Those were complicated times, in my family, as well as the nation.

Sorry for the blatant plug, but you'll get a laugh out of these stories, most of which are published on Gather, individually. This link is to what I call Tales From the Vendome, and it's about growing up in NYC, focusing on the early 1970's. This encompasses the time of mass "bra-burnings," though none of my stories mention that. Again, pardon me, but your post really gave me a flashback to those times. Check it out!

http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2006/02/tales-from-vendome-nextleav-flashes.html

I was born in the 60's. I'm glad that women have fought for equal pay and equal rights. It still may not be equal but here in the States it seems better than years past.

I didn't burn my bra. I was a little bit younger, but I did develope the habit of not wearing one, in the first place. I have some, and wear one, if it seems appropriate for the occasion, like "dressing up", but otherwise, I'm comfortable, all the time. And that ain't frumpy.

I wouldn't buy anything from Victoria's secret. Sweatshop hogs!

Nope,never burned a bra.

Nope. I wasn't born yet when it came about!