Originally it all started when a story by Lindsay van Gelder in the New York Post carried a headline "Bra Burners and Miss America". It drew an analogy between the feminist protest and Vietnam War protesters who burned their draft cards. In fact, there was no bra burning, nor did anyone take off her bra.
The phrase became headline material and was quickly associated with women who chose to go braless. Feminism and "bra-burning" then became linked in popular culture and Germaine Greer became a symbol for bra burning.
The first actual public bra-burning is documented, at a feminist rally in Lower Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, CA on June 2nd 1970, where a 38-C bra was ceremonially burned in a wastebasket with a fire extinguisher handy. Other events also occurred, but it wasn't as popular as people think.
So eventually they did start burning bras as a form of protest, but it was sort of a weird scenario where the phenomenon was talked about first and then later actually done.
Unfortunately anti-feminists have used "bra burning" and "braless" stereotypes as a way of attempting to trivialize the feminist movement.
"Bras are a ludicrous invention, but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression." - Germaine Greer.
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