Abstract
IT MAY SEEM OBVIOUS THAT Playboy and the women's movement would come to blows by the early 1970s. Indeed they did throughout the previous decade. In 1962 journalist and future feminist leader Gloria Steinem went undercover to work briefly at the Playboy Club in Chicago as a "bunny" waitress.2 Writing for Show magazine, she claimed poor working conditions and sexual harassment of women. Six years later in Atlantic City, New Jersey, radical feminists denounced the "Unbeatable Madonna-Whore Combination" promoted by Playboy and the Miss America pageant that was held there annually.' Many feminists decried Playboy's use of centerfold "playmates" and bunnies as objectifying and degrading. Despite these oft-cited critiques, Playboy took a progressive stance on women's rights throughout the 1960s and 1970s and was particularly vocal in support of abortion. Evidence of this position can be found in the magazine's articles and editorials as well as in the charitable donations of the Playboy Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the magazine, which contributed thousands of dollars to abortion rights organizations before Roe v. Wade overturned antiabortion laws in the United States. In addition, the Playboy Foundation provided the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
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