What are The Good Things That Beauty Contests Bring Women?
Every women should convince herself that the real beauty is the beauty of the soul, the beauty of personality, and the beauty of ethics. Nowadays because of contests like beauty pageants, nobody values that. It is all about the physical beauty, how the body looks, how the hair or the face looks, etc.
A beauty contest is a competition based on physical beauty in which beauty is the major factor contested. Also, it is based on personality, talent, and answers to judges questions. Then whoever does the best in this contest win. This contest started in the United States in 1921 in Atlantic City, when some hotel managers tried to entice some tourists to the town by planning a "National Beauty Tournament" and then selecting the most beautiful bathing beauty in America. "Pageants were introduced into the lives of Americans and became a major event, although they were discontinued from 1929-1932 due to the Great Depression" (Nussbaum 1).
The good things about beauty pageants are that they help women to develop themselves, because these pageants offer a lot of money for the contestants. Thos some beautiful poor women can use this money and it really will help them. Other enticements that these pageants offer is scholarship money, which is also helpful for young ladies to accomplish their dreams. The contestants also will be a good example for other young ladies. Another positive aspect of the contest is that "many pageant winners do a lot of community work and conduct numerous speaking engagements throughout their reign" (Sundisc 1). However, all these do not mean that these beauty contests are good. They actually should be forbidden in our society. They are so offensive for women, make girls so obsessive about their looks, and large amounts of money are spent on these contests.
There is no doubt that these pageants are so offensive to women. They are focusing on the physical beauty of the women and introducing them as objects for men. It sends a message for all women that what is really important is how they look, nothing else. Otherwise, they could just take standardized intelligence and fitness tests and not do the evening gown and the swimsuit competition. The most important question is, do beauty contests enhance the prestige and dignity of women? In the beauty contest, the participating women are scantily dressed, are mostly required to expose their body and beauty before the male judges, walking in the most offensive and distasteful manner. Does it in any way increase the respect of the women? In fact, when woman walk half naked in front of hundreds people, this bring disgrace to her, and she becomes an object of commercial display and turns into easy prey to the desires of men.
These beauty contests make girls who want to participate in them obsessed about appearance. Because of the high standards that these pageants require, like the perfect thin body, and the beautiful look, girls will do anything so that they can participate. That will encourage them to engage in unhealthy diets. Sometimes, they starve themselves to have the perfect body. It also makes women feel they are ugly. All the requirements of the contest puts a lot of pressure on any women and it will let them feel ugly. This is not only considering the girls who want to participate in the contests; it also considers their parents who also get crazy about putting their girls in these contests for money. There are also baby pageants, which is very harmful for children:
A documentary on BBC3 about those parents, who give their daughter a plastic surgery at 7, so she would look cute. Those kids were so depressed and unhappy, and they totally do not want to do this pageant thing. The saddest part, that their parents were trying to convenience themselves that they were doing this for their children best"(Should the parents of child Beauty pageant).
How can it good putting all this pressure on their children and not allowing them to live a normal life? They should admit that it is all about money.
The last point is about the amount of money spent on these beauty contests. There are definitely a lot of problems in the world, like poverty, crime, and unemployment. Thus instead of spending huge amounts of money on something stupid and meaningless like beauty pageants, people should spend money on solving these problems that are more important and more dangerous. This is the real way to improve countries. To enter beauty pageants, young ladies and their parents spend thousands of dollars on hair, makeup, dresses, and on plastic surgery if necessary! A former contestants, now coaches girls "a week of her training costs $5,000; a day goes for 1,000(qtd in Fleishman), which is something crazy. Winners of these pageants win a 45 million dollar scholarship from the Miss America Organization (beauty pageants). It just does not make any sense to win this amount of money just for being pretty. It is so unfair for a lot of intelligent women who really deserve it.
Finally, there are a lot of people who are totally against these competitions, like Muslims, which is for religious reasons. And also a lot of intelligent sophisticated women find these pageants offensive. However people who supporting this competition are the people who are making a fortune because of it. After all, these pageants are really offensive for women because all people should realize that the real beauty is absolutely the beauty of the soul, and beauty contests do not bring anything good to women.
Work Cited
Beauty Pageant College Scholarships. College Scholarships.org. N.P. N.D
Web. Dec 2, 2010.
http://www.collegescholarships.org/scholarships/beauty-pageants.htm
Fleishman Tamar. "The Cost of Winning a Beauty Pageant"
Aug 8, 2002. N.P Web Dec 2, 2010
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/advice/20020808a.asp
Goswami Kanika. "Beauty Pageants: Good, Bad or plain Ugly"
N.P. N.D Web. Dec 2, 2010
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-6-2004-51324.asp
Hamilton Tom. " Are beauty contests harmful?" May 17, 2003
N.P Web. Dec 2, 2010
http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=218
Nussbaumi Kareen. "Children and Beauty Pageants" N.p. N.D
Web. Dec 2, 2010
http://www.minorcon.org/pageants.html
Should the parents of child Beauty pageant contestants enjoy a psychological screening beforehand? N.p. N.D
Web. Dec 2, 2010
http://www.babyfreefaq.com/parenting/6227.html
