Bra Burning (1968)

[Fred Shapiro]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, James A. Landau wrote:

> Thank you Barry for an excellent piece of research.  You've nailed down
> "women's liberation" and "bra-burning" in a three-day stretch.
>
> Women's Lib and the so-called "bra-burning" emerged in the year of the Prague
> Spring?

If I may be permitted a perhaps half-assed political statement, women's
liberation and the Prague spring are usually considered both to be part of
a worldwide, non-Communist leftist movement in 1968, a year often compared
to 1848.  So the coincidence of the two should not be surprising.

I must have missed Barry's nailing down of the term "women's liberation."
The OED has "women's liberation" in 1966, a citation contributed to them
by me.  I believe I have found earlier evidence subsequently.  The OED has
"women's lib" in 1969, a citation also contributed to them by me.
"Women's lib" was clearly a flip journalistic coinage, perhaps a Time-ism
(I haven't checked the N.Y. Times or Wash. Post historical databases.)
See my American Speech article, "Historical Notes on the Vocabulary of the
Women's Movement" (60:3-16 [1985]) for a detailed study of all this.


Fred Shapiro


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