Miss Canadian University, 1970: Campus Pageants as Places of Protest

Abstract

Using the controversial 1970 Miss Canadian University pageant as a case study, this Research Note contextualizes young women’s participation in and rejection of pageants within the burgeoning women’s liberation movement on Canadian university campuses in the 1960s and 1970s. Through an analysis of archival records, it examines how the issues raised and actions taken in the 1970 pageant and protest percolated across university campuses, raising awareness of the women’s liberation movement among university students while enhancing student activism. It also focuses specifically on the impact that the protests had on the counterculture campus of Simon Fraser University and the more conservative student body at Waterloo Lutheran University.