Miss-Represented? Mediating Miss World in Shrew Magazine

Abstract

This article argues that the mass mediation of the Miss World protest of 1970 has obscured the ‘messy particularities’ of grass-roots feminist activism. Reading Shrew magazine as it mediated the Miss World protests of 1969 and 1970 reveals the multiple, contingent and complex feminisms underpinning activism. Exploring the debates within the pages of Shrew makes visible a critique of white hegemonic femininity, as well as a constant critical interrogation and testing of feminist ideas and practices. More specifically, the women producing Shrew recognized the intersections between race, social class and gender, and explored the implications of intersectionality before the term became common currency within feminism; they also recognized that the mass media’s construction of the women’s liberation movement as white and middle class positioned white feminists in opposition to their black sisters. Reading Shrew alerts us to the everyday, messy and multiple feminisms that stimulated and sustained the production of the magazine itself, as well as the activism associated with the Miss World protests.

Keywords:

• feminist media
• periodicals
• grass-roots activism
• women’s liberation movement
• Shrew
• Miss World protests

Notes

1 On the first page of the review issue of Shrew in February 1970, the editors explained the significance of the front cover, which carried the slogans featured on the banners of the protesters at the 1969 Miss World protest.

2 This is also reproduced in the review issue of Shrew (February 1970: 19).

3 For a description of the production process, see Shrew (November/December 1969: 15).

4 Earlier that day, the Angry Brigade had exploded a bomb in a car outside the Royal Albert Hall (‘The Royal Albert Hall’ 3 July 2010).

5 Jenny Fortune describes the event in similar terms with her emphasis on resisting the pressure to act and behave like a ‘nice middle-class girl’ (Campbell 2010).

6 The five women remanded on bail were: Norma Jo Robinson, Catherine Mclean, Mair Twissell, Sally Alexander and Jennifer Fortune.