bra-burning

Bra-burning evokes the feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, when women supposedly burned bras as symbols of patriarchal constraint.

The image became shorthand for radical feminism, often used dismissively: bra-burning feminists.

Historians note that actual bra-burning was rare or apocryphal—protesters at the 1968 Miss America pageant threw bras into a "freedom trash can" but didn't ignite them.

The term persists as a cultural touchstone for women's liberation, sometimes reclaimed, sometimes mocking.