Recently on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver he made fun of the Miss America pageant. When discussing these pageants he critiqued their scholarship claims and the judgement of women based upon their looks. This made me feel extremely bad for the women who participate in these pageants.
Majority of women who participate in pageants do it because they want to. I can not say if they enjoy being judge based on their appearance but that is their prerogative. People say that it is sexists to judge women based on their appearance but no one seems to have an issue with bodybuilding competitions. Bodybuilders work relentlessly in the gym and on their flexing to win their competitions. Some may be creeped out by their ridiculous amount of muscles but no one seems to give them as much flack that pageant contestants receive.
Pageant contestants work hard to stay in shape and to train for these competitions. People typically look down on what they do but, to work your way up through the pageant circuit and spend the time and money into the dresses and categories they compete in, they deserve a little more respect.
I have never been a pageant girl and admittedly my knowledge of pageants comes from "Toddlers in Tiaras" but I feel a type of kinship to pageant girls. Being on dance team people do not respect the work that we put in and criticize us as"putting ourselves out there as objects."
I am on dance team because I like to dance, to perform, to be on a team, and being on dance team has made me so much stronger and has allowed me to meet people I probably never would've known. There is a stigma that surrounds dance team members, cheerleaders, and yes, even pageant girls that is completely unfair. The stigma has something to do with promiscuity, lack of intelligence, and attention craving.
It hurts to be disrespected and critiqued by my peers and even my teachers for doing something I like to do. No one seems to acknowledge what it actually takes to do what I do. People just see the short skirts and the fact that we preform at football games and pass judgement.
Women on spirit squads or who participate in pageants are women. They are capable of anything and all types of thought. What they chose to participate in is their prerogative. Any judgement passed on women because what they do even on the grounds of "freeing them from gender roles" is unfair.
I thought your argument was really well thought out. I really like Last Week Tonight, and I didn't even think about that. This was pretty eye opening to me, and I agree completely. Even when people try to be supportive and feminist, they can sometimes put people down and I think this illustrates that really well.
ReplyDeleteYou make an incredibly strong and well thought out argument, and I agree with Bonnie. However, I also believe that while the participants should not necessarily be critiqued for choosing to preform, the institutions should very much be looked at with a critical eye. And while I've paid no real attention to pageants or body building, I do have a problem with both. It isn't just sexism or necessarily degrading, but its just 100% subjective, a race to fit the most tightly into a definition of "manly" or "beautiful." It also must be taken into consideration how societal influences shape the decisions of people deciding what they wan't to do, from science and math to sports and modeling, but that's an entirely different argument, and not one that makes me very popular.
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