Bras weren’t the only things the second-wave feminists burned in the ‘60s. But that’s all I learned about the movement in school and casual conversation (on the rare occasions when feminist movements were brought up). The documentary, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, fills in what our education system and historical imaginations leave out.
Second-wave feminists also burned oppressive patriarchy, definitions of feminine beauty, and, most poignant to me, their hard-earned diplomas. They literally set fire to bachelors degrees, masters degrees, and PhD certificates. An activist in the film explained, "We had graduated and learned nothing about women."
This documentary shows us what the textbooks didn’t and still don’t show often enough — the early, angry, undoubtedly beautiful grassroots radicals.
Of course, not all anger is beautiful. Some anger is abusive, relentless, and uncontrollable. I noticed three types of anger in the documentary — one beautiful, and two problematic:
1) Anger from oppression — the anger that came from corsets and cat calls, from "Men Only" classified ads for executives, from bruises on cheeks, from unequal pay, from an oppressive history recorded sparingly (beautiful).
2) Anger from ignorance — when the male civil rights activists booed and cursed their female activist comrades offstage (not beautiful).
3) Anger from fear — when the leaders of the National Organization for Women kicked lesbian feminists out of the organization for fear that they would hurt the main mission of the movement (not beautiful).
She’s Beautiful paints early second-wave feminism as impassioned, intelligent, and tireless. But Mary Dore, the film’s director, doesn’t present the movement as unified. Some women fought for abortion rights while others fought against forced sterilization. Working-class women had different needs than middle-class white women, who had different battles than black women (which holds true today), who had different concerns than lesbian women.
These are the diverse, determined, trailblazing activists with whom many young women today are afraid to associate. Many of us shy away from the term "feminist" because of the angry bra-burning baggage that comes with it. I don’t know where I would be without these angry women, but I know where I wouldn’t be — in this office, wearing these comfortable black pants.
So I’m glad the documentary title points out that these activists were in fact beautiful when they were angry — changing legislation and marching in the streets.
Not everyone is such a big fan of the title. One feminist started a Twitter discussion about it:
The She’s Beautiful Twitter handle responded:
In a panel discussion after a D.C. screening of She’s Beautiful, Dore further explained that the title isn’t praising the activists’ physical beauty. Rather, it’s lifting up "the beauty they felt when they started to liberate themselves."
In fact, it was the anger that "carried [them] through and made [them] fearless," added another voice in the film.
She’s Beautiful reminds us not to shy away from their anger, their beauty, their poetry.
Toward the end of the film, Alta and Susan Griffin talk about the role of poetry in the feminist movement. I’m reminded of the angry poetry of the psalms, and the wise anger of poet Maya Angelou:
"You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it."
We can’t stop talking about it just yet — there’s work to do.
WATCH the trailer here.
Jenna Barnett is editorial assistant for Sojourners.
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