Bra Burning (1968)

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:27 AM -0500 3/12/03, James A. Landau wrote:
>Does anyone know how long it took for "women's liberation" to be pared down
>to "women's lib"?  I know the "Liberator" bomber/transport of World War II
>was known as the "Lib", but offhand I can't recall any uses of "Lib" for
>"Liberation Movement" before the citation above.
>
"Pared down" is certainly a value-neutral label for this particular
truncation.  At the time it was widely recognized that the short form
was a signal of dismissiveness, and that some male leftists (and some
male non-leftists) who used it would not have been caught dead
referring to the National Liberation Front in Vietnam or various
black liberation movements then extant as "lib".

larry