Are Beauty Pageants Exploitative - Essay Example

Beauty Pageants Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lecture Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 9 June, 2012. Introduction Beauty pageant or beauty contest is a competition that focuses on the physical beauty of its contestants. It is every girl’s dream for them to become a famous model and this is accompanied by being a beauty queen to many other girls. On the face of it, it may seem easy to walk down the runway and show off your style. This however needs determination as judges not only look at the confidence one portrays but also on the brains that one has. Beauty pageants therefore involve talent and personality. But there has been an argument which is an emerging issue: Are beauty pageants exploitative or not? Some may argue for or against it but in this case, beauty pageants are exploitative using the given facts. Are beauty pageants exploitative or not? For children it is said that it boosts self confidence and the children have fun doing it. Is applying a lot of makeup and dressing half naked as they walk down the runway and hear their names being shouted really add any confidence? Dressing skimpily brings out a false image of female sexuality as they think dressing half the body naked shows that one is admired by many girls. It has however led to moral decadency and the girl child no longer dresses appropriately in most occasions. No one will be blamed if they said that this dressing half naked is one of the major contributors of many cases of sexual abuse. All the expenses in being a model are catered for by the parents and instead of concentrating on buying things that can help nurture the child, all that is bought are things that can’t help in the future. Most pageants have bikinis and body beautiful rounds where contestants are judged according to their perfect bodies. The image of tall models that are always perfect, ever smiling on their faces, even while wearing very tall high heels that are resulting to sprains is agonising. Girls experimenting with their diets to acquire the slim body shape are very challenging and in a situation where their dieting fails, they suffer from depression and psychological illnesses. Others result to extreme measures like plastic surgeries and even diet drugs to lose weight. This makes the girls involved in this not to accept themselves the way they are. Imagine a world where everyone had a slim body? There should be diversity where all cultures are embraced. Big, small, plump and slim. If beauty pageants are that inspiration to them, they can prepare for it accompanied with a healthy attitude and the motivation to take the experience and develop it into something admirable. Aspiring to be in beauty pageants is not wrong. But these pageants are supposed to promote intercultural relationships and more so they are supposed to encourage the contestants into building a confident and all around personality. Attractiveness should not only be skin deep but should involve categories on talent and the charisma to be appealing in public speaking.  Peer pressure, and the pressures of the competition in the educational fields has led to people resulting to narrow ways of achieving fame and wealth in their lives, no wonder the beauty pageants are most shortcuts to these girls (Carlson 2010, pp.82) .For girls who go for beauty contests because their parents false them, they do more harm than good because the child does not do it out of will and if they do not succeed in it they go home with nothing. This leads to waste of resources and time which would have been used to do other activities that the child liked. There are some cases wherein young girls do not win and in all their life, they will always carry the burden of thinking that they are ugly .It should be meant for fun but parents make it as way to get easy money . Since beauty pageants training start when one is still young, a child behaves like a grown up. This hinders her growth life cycle because she believes that having the latest bag, tallest high heel shoes is what dictates whether she will be chosen as a queen. The child grows with a false impression on how to be famous through beauty (Scruton 2009, pp.77). The contests makes one to never have a private life hence from childhood one is followed everywhere by the socialmedia.This frustrates an individual as they can no longer socialize or go to places they would want to go(Tuttle 1997, pp.14). It also brings out the negative characters that one has and this will always bring the negative image in someone because everyone wants to view you as the perfect person. Another way of pageant exploitiveness is that rather than arguing their judgments on the girl’s ability to do various things, they value more of the girl’s physical appearance. As a result, young girls tend to believe that it is right to judge others and to think of them as objects that can be criticized by their personality. This may have an effect on how they will think about other people. Instead of looking at other things like their personality or attitude, they will look at what they see on the outside. Young girls will have the same perception of what is beautiful and think that they are also supposed to criticize others based on their appearance. It is discriminatory for young girls wanting to join beauty pageants because one must have qualifications like having the right height and weight, the right size of body and most of all having a beautiful face. In some cases, one must possess the right age and attract people’s attention (Treba 2000, pp.25). Bias against color and knowledge of English language has also brought exploitative pageants because one is forced to learn and understand English even if they do not speak it. Instead of representing their own country they represent another country and this leads to culture erosion. This has even gone to the extent of even basing their judgment on which country has the most beautiful queens and this is no longer a competition but a platform to rate that has the best physical appearance. Beauty pageants are nothing but a deceitful medium to lie to the youth. It emphasizes on the false beauty and the young girls gladly accept this as beautiful. They try to look like people in magazines mostly from the West who are deemed beautiful (Hamilton 2010, pp.71). The skinny, fair skinned with human like weaves will always win over the natural looking dark or toned girls. This makes Africans look away from their beautiful people and seek approval from the Westernised culture. Although it serves as an aspiration for most of these beauty pageants, the exploitation of women is for promotion of marketing and commercial interests of the sponsors. In the end the beneficiary is the promoter and not the model because more money goes to the sponsors and not models. Conclusion No significant studies have been done to show the long term benefits of beauty pageants. The results that have presented themselves in the participation are girls growing into self centred, promiscuous teens who suffer from body image challenges and the inability to properly interact with their peers. Instead of making the pageants exploitative, let girls be treated as little girls, not little adults because to showcase a child in public wearing the attire of an adult and suggestive posing is with no doubt child pornography (Kendrick 2010, pp.62). This is insensible to a child’s exposure and one is so much in greed of any money made off in a child’s back which is just exploitative. Girls are growing up too fast and at the same time being pressured into many directions. More dialogue between the child and the parents would go a long way to providing a more stable lifestyle for these children. These pageants are not for the children, but for the parents to look for a way to get their own attention. It is frustrating how the parents act and very sad to watch these children endure the demands put on them by their parents (Kaplan 2007, pp.53).These children don’t know but they are being brainwashed by their parents. Instead of portraying that only the slim bodied girls should participate in the modeling, let equality be practiced where neither age nor size and height should be considered. Fairness should prevail and not bias or criticism. Beauty pageants should be done for fun and appreciating different and diverse creations. After all beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and what might be good to one person is not what is pleasing to someone else. References Barbieri, R.1986, The Fashion Show, Lyle Stuart, Canada. Carlson, M.2010, Catwalk (On the Runway), Zondervan, Michigan. Gerval, O.2010, Fashion: Concept to Catwalk (Studies in Fashion), Firefly Books, Canada. Gregory, D.2008, Catwalk, Delacorte Books for young readers, New York. Hamilton, L.K.2010, Beauty: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Outtake, Berkley, New York. Kendrick, S.2010, A Tainted Beauty, Harlequin, Australia. Scruton, R. 2009, Beauty, Oxford University Press, U.S.A. Treba, G.2000, Runway, powerhouse Books, New York. Tuttle.R.G.1997, The Runway, CSS Publishing Company, Ohio. Read More