For the feminists who protested the Miss America pageant in 1968, the beauty contest epitomized the so-called "Madonna-whore complex." Members of the women's liberation group New York Radical Women listed "the unbeatable Madonna-whore combination" as one of their complaints about the famous beauty contest.
Madonna Or...?
Deriving from Freudian psychology, the syndrome refers to men forcing all women into a dichotomy of being either pure, motherly and on a pedestal OR being a lustful, and presumably depraved, prostitute. "Madonna" refers to the artistic depiction of Christianity's Mary, mother of Jesus, shown with her Christ child as holy, conceived without sin, saintly and/or pure, among other church doctrines.
The syndrome is sometimes referred to as "Madonna-prostitute syndrome." The idea has been picked up in popular culture discourse. Many people use it to describe a man who "can't" or won't be attracted to a woman once he sees her as a mother, because she is placed in one of those two polarized categories, the mother versus the sexual being. On the other hand, the women who evoke any idea of sexuality are somehow "bad" and unworthy of actual love, or commitment. This troubling false dichotomy is disturbing, but it also leads to a confused desire to have all women be both categories at once: ultimately pure and innocent while unfailingly sexually attractive.
Bathing Suit Beauties
Feminists witnessed the "Madonna-whore combination" at work in the Miss America pageant. Comparing Miss America to a Playboy centerfold, the radical feminists explained: "To win approval, we must be both sexy and wholesome, delicate but able to cope…" Miss America conjured up wholesome images of youth, beauty, pure womanhood and patriotic good girls, but at the same time emphasized physical attraction above all else and paraded women down a runway in bathing suits for the pleasure of viewers.
While the swimsuit competition has generated the occasional public debate, not all Miss America watchers stop to grapple with the idea of simultaneously revering wholesome young women and ogling their attractive bodies.
No More Unbeatable Combination
The women's liberation movement challenged the U.S. public in general to resist categorization of women, including the categories of pure-Madonna-pedestal versus lustful-sexual-gutter. In the 1968 Atlantic City protest, feminists challenged the Miss America pageant to stop asking women to be, absurdly, both at once.