iBot Poll: Beauty Pageant

I attended a "Miss (area)" event a while back. It was part of a collection of social clubs I went to at the time. My group didn't have a candidate for "Miss" so I put on a wig and entered. Curiously, despite the contest consisting of six girls and me I only narrowly missed the top three.

Lämmchen said:

I wish they didn't exist. Boys get to grow up smart and learn things but girls have to grow up to be pretty and wear a bathing suit that shows a lot of skin. :angry:

heh, I just noticed that my avatar is wearing a tiara. Time to change that soon!

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Nobody is forced to enter a beauty contest. If anything it makes it easier to be a woman than a man - if a girl is clever she can have a professional career and if she's pretty she can be a model. If a boy is clever he can have a professional career and if he is not he doesn't have many of the modelling options available.

Back in the day when Samantha Fox was in her heyday (she was a topless model in the UK - guys, no need to look her up if you don't already know her name) it was often commented how she could earn ten times what the average working man made, simply by taking off her clothes. At the time the average salary was GBP20-25,000 and she was reported to make GBP250,000 as a model. Men typically can't do that.

Lämmchen said:

There are beauty pageants for little girls who are just toddlers. It's not like a lot of them have a choice to be in them and they're pressured by mom to keep participating in them.

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Not sure I'd be quite so approving of beauty pageants for kids too young to even understand what beauty is.

None of the poll responses applies to me...


I've RARELY watched at least a bit of "beauty pageants." I never really saw the point. One can see better looking girls any day of the week wherever you are. Why these? And the attempts to suggest that "beauty pageants" are not about beauty strikes me as .. well... you know. Funny too.... in my college days, it was pretty common for guys to share on social media who is "pretty" or "hot" (or whatever term seemed to apply).... now, in this radical "me too" culture, I'd fear that could land me in jail. So I wonder, why is it okay for television shows to be entirely dedicated to exactly what has gotten people expelled from school and punished for doing? Hum. Weird.

I found the most beautiful woman in the world. And married her.




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Lämmchen said:

There are beauty pageants for little girls who are just toddlers. It's not like a lot of them have a choice to be in them and they're pressured by mom to keep participating in them.

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Ive only been close to a couple of these "Little Miss Whatever" events, mainly because of being in a mall or hotel lobby at the wrong time (!). However, beauty is not the theme with them. Rather it is poise and talent...or supposed poise and talent.

But I also know for a fact that it is the girls themselves--perhaps not with toddlers but Elementary and Middle School kids--who enjoy being contestants.

They don't have as many extra-curricular opportunities as boys do, so for those who are interested (and that is not many) this is one thing that they can do. Is it wrong or harmful? I would have a hard time arguing that it is, even if the whole idea is on the silly side.

Josiah said:

I've RARELY watched at least a bit of "beauty pageants." I never really saw the point. One can see better looking girls any day of the week wherever you are. Why these? And the attempts to suggest that "beauty pageants" are not about beauty strikes me as .. well... you know. Funny too.... in my college days, it was pretty common for guys to share on social media who is "pretty" or "hot" (or whatever term seemed to apply).... now, in this radical "me too" culture, I'd fear that could land me in jail. So I wonder, why is it okay for television shows to be entirely dedicated to exactly what has gotten people expelled from school and punished for doing? Hum. Weird.

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I remember back in the days when Miss World was a big thing (it may still be, it's just not on my radar any more) and the way all the contestants apparently wanted to help children and animals. And then came the curiosities - if I recall one contestant was disqualified because it turned out she was married and another was disgraced because she had posed topless a couple of years previously. So apparently the contestants had to be physically beautiful but also meet whatever "wholesome" meant at the time. And, as you say, there's the rather curious contrast between the idea of looking at women not wearing very much while being told we're not supposed to look at women who aren't wearing very much. It's not entirely unlike the way that women can apparently wear low-cut tops that scream "look at my cleavage" but if a man actually looks at the cleavage she intentionally put on display he's somehow out of line.

I found the most beautiful woman in the world. And married her.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I did that

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tango said:

Josiah said:

]I found the most beautiful woman in the world. And married her.

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Sorry to disappoint you, but I did that

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:ewink: