According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a beauty contest can be defined as:
• an assemblage of girls or women at which judges select the most beautiful — also called beauty pageant
• a contest or competitive situation that is likened to a traditional beauty contest especially in involving judgments made on the basis of physical attractiveness or popular appeal.
Everyone has their own unique definition of beauty. Beauty means charm, grace, attraction, glamour, allure and many other adjectives that may or may not fit on me and you. A pageant is a beauty contest. In layman’s terms a Beauty Pageant is a competition where a person is judged based on their physical attributes. Beauty Pageants are not limited to women, these are also open for men, there are separate contests for men, women (separate for married and unmarried) and teens.
The most common Beauty Pageants are:
Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss Teen, Miss Grand International, Mr. World, Mr. International, Mr. Global, Mrs. World, Mrs. Globe, Mrs. International.
Beauty pageants have positive impacts on individuals. Being in a pageant teaches you to be confident and love yourself; you have to be confident and love yourself regardless of the way that others see you. It encourages growth in confidence, outgoing personality, and a positive self-image. Participating in beauty pageants and having a strong self-image go together. Beauty competitions are a way for them to improve their self-esteem.
Beauty pageants allow them to overcome fear. One can really become good at public speaking and performing in front of others. With practice, you’ll be able to maintain your demeanor and express yourself freely. Public speaking is valuable training for future careers in music, broadcasting, or other jobs requiring speaking in front of large groups. Contestants will see their comfort level growing.
The level of fitness and discipline that it often takes to participate in beauty pageants can help a person in the contest and in the future. When in a beauty pageants, your body needs to be in shape. Contestants will learn how to put in effort. Contestants will also learn a lot about patience. After putting in the time to get into shape, contestants will get a greater appreciation for the results they see and use this as an outlook to help in their future activities. You also get to learn that one needs to work hard as well as work smart to be successful and appreciated in life.
Beauty contests can be an important focus of national or regional pride. Beauty Pageants are an apt example of “Beauty with brains”, but let’s not forget that every coin has two sides. While a Pageant provide an opportunity for some of the most beautiful young women to fulfil their ambitions and develop themselves as human beings, it also sets standards for what beauty is, it makes it sound as if beauty is only physical and not inner. It gives high hopes to woman. Another negative point is that not everyone can afford it.
To take part in a Beauty Pageant one needs to have a certain height, a certain size, though there are different contests for plus size models. Still, I feel that these contests kind of promote inferiority complex among the youth. The bar is set too high for everyone to reach. Minimum height of a woman to contest for Miss Universe is 5’5 and should be aged between 18-25 years of age, as if a woman less than 5’5 and above 25 years can’t be beautiful, but mind you. Ask yourself, Isn’t your mother, sister or wife the epitome of beauty for you, full of grace and elegance.
A pageant can help women make contacts that can benefit them. Other women enter them to become more involved in their community, to bring a charity or an urgent cause into limelight, or to meet people and make friends. The worst reason to enter a pageant can be for self-validation. The likelihood is that for money and profit, girls stretch their arms and legs to make them long and thin and even reach aesthetic surgery. South Korea is an example where it is common for a woman to go under knife and scissors.
The pageant has been around for a long time, so clearly many people do not believe that there is anything wrong with it. Nevertheless, when I consider the women who glide across the stage, I specifically recall skinny women who appear to have perfect teeth, perfect skin, and perfect bodies. It’s a lot of pressure because the only women who look like that are in magazines, television, and movies. The psychological effects of beauty pageants are a topic for modern discussion. There are many long-lasting effects on the lives of women Ultimately, beauty pageants place more importance on the physical appearance instead of developing other qualities. Over-sexualizing young girls are common ailments in beauty pageants. Beauty pageants cause little children, especially girls to use artificial means like makeup, fake tans, and expensive clothing to boost their self-esteem. For a person, the idea that everything they are doing is being judged can be too much to handle and it causes them to question their true beauty and identity.
Beauty Pageants are degrading womanhood, they can’t always be empowering for everyone. Beauty pageants look nice and encouraging; but in reality, they are exploiting women. Pageants are held to satisfy men’s lust and promote the businesses of fashion, clothing, jewelry, makeup, etc., for women. Some organizers see a lot of money-making opportunities, and they have now started wedding expos as well. They have become cash-cows for the media as well.
But beauty pageants have hidden pitfalls. They degrade the morale of many imperfect women and promote the exploitation of women. Thus, beauty pageants degrade our society little by little. If the proverb “beauty is skin-deep” is true, then we should judge a woman by her brains and not by her looks
Beauty Pageants are affiliated with an immense variety of negative psychological, and social defects along with inappropriate attention. Beauty pageants are harmful not only to ordinary women but also to the entire society because they give women the feeling that they are inadequate and ugly, leading to dieting and eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, and has a larger effect on men's attitude towards women. A major effect of beauty pageants on women is that they encourage feelings of inadequacy and imperfection. Another consequence of this feeling of inadequacy among women is their decision to go under the knife. In an attempt to modify their body shape and size, women undergo weight reduction procedures such as liposuction and stomach stapling which are quite harmful and sometimes fatal.
Other cosmetic procedures include nose jobs, breast implants, eyelid surgery, facelifts, and Botox injections. Not only do these make stronger the perception of women that they were not perfect and needed to be corrected, they also carry with them the risk of permanent scarring and post-operative cognitive disorder. Also, since these procedures are quite costly, women with fewer resources become desperate and fall into debt traps, sell themselves as prostitutes, and go to any extent to gather resources needed to achieve that perfection. So, is bearing all these pains and suffering for achieving that perfection really worth it?
In the past, people were happy to enjoy beauty contests for what they were — a superficial piece of nonsense. But these days, Society demands reality. And beauty contests defy reality. It is noted that, women who compete in beauty pageants may experience low self-esteem and depression, as beauty pageants have negative aspects since they maintain women should be tall, thin, and conventionally beautiful to be successful.
Personally, I would like to believe that an evolutionary path exists where women and the perceived ranking of their beauty ceases to exist. If we are to value girls and women more — to give them the same opportunities and pay as their male counterparts — we have to stop representing them as objects. And while the debate over beauty pageants continues to evolve, so do the movies that depict pageant culture, as they look for a way to reflect both the diversity of female experience and the struggles that comes when so much of women’s worth is calculated by the way they look.
A small message to all the men out there, it is a woman’s mindset that raises and nurtures the children, not her body and good looks, so choose wisely. By Ifra Burhan, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi