Feminists and Flourbombs

A life-changing event

In 1970, the Miss World competition, held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, was disrupted by an unruly band of feminists protesting that the competition was a cattle market. Bob Hope, presenting the event, stood on a stage pelted with tomatoes and flour bombs. Bouncers were sprayed with blue ink. The women disrupting the competition shouted: 'We're not beautiful, we're not ugly, we're angry.'

Bob Hope's less than enlightened verdict on the events was that anyone who might disrupt Miss World 'must be on some kind of dope'. But Feminists and Flour Bombs shows otherwise. The programme looks at the events of that year through the eyes of five of the protesters. It examines their motives for participating in the protest and traces their lives from that period of social upheaval in which the Women's Liberation was born, to the present day. It looks at how their their political ideals were formed, and the impact of those ideals on their careers, life choices, household arrangements, families and relationships.

The programme looks at the extent to which the women's attitudes to the feminist movement have changed in the 30 years following the protest. Many of their beliefs have survived those decades, others have fallen away. Feminists and Flour Bombs is a unique insight into how the Women's Liberation movement came into being, what it achieved and what remains to be done.

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A life-changing event

The 1970s

Then and now

Miss World

The protesters

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