A Critical Review Of Deborah Ryan's Argument

Julie Costello Pre-College English #7 Mrs. Flynn March 9, 2015 Child Beauty Pageants (Little Miss Perfect) Most people believe that child beauty pageants are ridiculous and should be banned. They feel this way because these girls do not have a choice to be in the pageants. “Beauty pageants started in the 1920s in Atlantic City. The business owners needed a way to keep tourists there past Labor Day so they introduced pageantry.”

history is dominated by the epic scenes of wars and revolutions, it is not these which fill my heart with enthusiasm for the subject. That distinction is owed to those who were at the core of these events: Robespierre and Emma Goldman, Peter the Great and Theodora; it is they who truly capture the magnificence and variety that can be found within history’s glorious annals. In people and events, I see a reflection of all that I have ever known; the song of history, with all of its crescendos and harmonies, resonates through time, unfaltering. When I observe history, the infinite connections between the members of the human race finally come into view, and I feel

world of beauty pageant. They will compete in hopes of getting the crown, pageant titles, trophies, fame and of course money. In an article called ‘Princess by Proxy: What Child Beauty Pageants Teach Girls About Self-Worth and What We Can Do About It,’ M.Cartwright (2012) argues that

Olive’s decision exerts so much power over the rest of her family in that the goal of attending the pageant overrides other events. In spite of the comical way events such as forgoing necessary repairs to the van to ultimately delaying funeral arrangements for her beloved grandfather are depicted in the film they demonstrate the powerful influence that Olive’s dream has on the family. As much as we credit Olive with the ability to exert power, one can suggest that ultimately she is responding to the power that society holds in general over many of us, in particular over young girls who dream to wear the pageant crown. In the article titled Strategic Ambiguity: Protecting Emphasized Femininity and Hegemonic Masculinity in the Hookup Culture, Currier quotes Connell (1987) and defines emphasized femininity as “the pattern of femininity which is given most cultural and ideological support… patterns such as sociability… compliance… [and] sexual receptivity [to men]” (Connell, 1987 as cited by Currier, 2013). The article explains that emphasized femininity is a “multilayered process of acting out gender publicly in culturally and socially accepted, defined, and age appropriate way” (West and Zimmerman 1987 as cited in Currier, 2013). Beauty pageants are a socially acceptable way for females to emphasize their femininity. In lecture, we spoke to the fact that popular femininity focuses on

In 2016, the world was shown the biggest hiccup in beauty pageant history, when Steve Harvey mis-announced the winner of Miss Universe, the largest scale pageant in history. This mistake spread through the workings of social media like wildfire bringing much public attention to the subject matter of beauty pageants and what they stand for. Although some may argue beauty pageants give bad body images, rob children of their childhood, or are simply an “ugly spectacle”. Many will argue that beauty pageants offer children and young adults an opportunity to better themselves in their community, pageants offer their contestants more than just a title, and provide them with many more opportunities, lastly pageants simply promote

Salzano, J. "Glitter and Glamour: Inside Children Beauty Pageants." The Tartan RSS. The Tartan, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 15 Dec. 2014. <http://www.rutartan.com/wordpress/?p=5459>.

Overall, the system of pageants is corrupt and needs to be banished before it causes anymore damage to today’s women. Does society want the future of America to choose parading on a stage in a swimsuit instead of going to college and building a life for themselves? Women need to form an alliance and work harder to make beauty pageants a thing of the

Since the first beauty pageant in 1888, un uprising in the comparison and judgement of women swept the world. The whole concept of beauty pageants is corrupt and disgusting as they put the primary focus on the outer appearance. Some may argue that the contestants are judged based on talent and other abilities too, but those portions of the contest do not count near as much as the girls physical beauty. In pageants that do consider talents, such as dancing, the dances are often very provocative and inappropriate for their age. Infact, there are even shows s like “Toddlers in Tiaras” that show the insanity of the pageants. In one episode of the eye opening show, a

With their glamour, expensive dresses, jewels and, big fake smiles, beauty pageant contestants are just hiding their true personalities under materialistic things. People may say that beauty pageants aren’t always about looks. The contestants are scored on beauty, personality, evening wear, athletic wear and over all perception of the contestant. Beauty contestant ages range from 2 years old to 60+ years old. The fact that contestants lie about their beliefs in order to get a good score for their personality and, present stereotypes to the world that young women to develop eating disorders shows that beauty pageants are bad for our society.

There is an ongoing debate on the detrimental effects that beauty pageants can have on their contestants. Judged solely on physical beauty, beauty pageants have been around for quite some time. The first pageant, the Miss America pageant, was held in 1921. Miss Universe and Miss USA soon followed, and by the 1960’s beauty pageants were part of American culture. Viewed as a positive and potentially rewarding competition, pageants have now recently had a drastic turn of view. Advocates of beauty pageants put forth that beauty contests develop self-esteem and confidence (Ending the Hypersexualization of Girls). However, beauty pageants can be a highly destructive concept that can put too much pressure on its contestants to look perfect, put parents in a financial crisis, and quite frankly, be simply unhealthy. As well as participation in beauty pageants, there is a rage of them on television as well. Television images and broadcasts have had a huge impact on it’s participants and the type of messages they internalize about what is “normal”. (Could Child Beauty Pageants Be Banned in the USA?). Children, as well as teens, view what they see on television as what they must become. Beauty pageants are very undermining to the participants emotional health, the pressure to look perfect, and it’s countless negative effects they possess.

Beauty pageants have been apart of the American community for many years. They are a competition where people, young and old, go to show off their talents, costumes, and of course their beauty. While this may seem somewhat accepted for older men and women, what happens when you throw children in the same competitions? Children beauty pageants have been growing at an alarming rate. Popular television shows, like Toddlers and Tiaras, are perpetuating the idea of theses ‘shallow’ competitions. While not all children are forced to do this pageants, many are. This can damage young kids and have a major impact on their adult life. Young children beauty pageants are detrimental to participants’ psychological health, harm family relations and disrupt the natural course of childhood, and encourage a demeaning view of women.

Certain types of pageants create an atmosphere in which wearing heavy makeup to emphasize full lips, long eyelashes, and flushed cheeks, high heels to emulate adult women, provocative dance steps, flirtatious poses or facial expressions, and revealing "evening gowns" is not

    Beauty pageants have become an American tradition since it started in the 1920’s. It began as a show where women ages thirteen to seventeen, would put on swimming suits and compete for the most beautiful woman in America. Over the course of time, beauty pageants have changed and now they include every gender, sex, nationality, age and background. In the 1960s beauty pageants took on another set of age groups; young girls ages, one to three, four to six, seven to nine and so on. The issue however began to come from the oversexualization of toddler girls and parents acting ridiculously about how their child should look and forcing them to act like an adult in the competition phase. The girls were being forced to grow up too soon and not only did it impact their attitudes, their self esteem and the way they pictured life but the same way affected the girls who were watching these pageants who then felt like they should look exactly like these girls because those girls were pretty enough to be in an American, broadcasted Pageant. Beauty pageants are not good for little children and the oversexualization of toddlers is wrong. Children should be allowed to grow as children and not be forced to roleplay as an adult.

Beauty pageants can be organized to advance some good causes. The contests are also a form of entertainment similarly to movies and music. For many models, the shows offer an opportunity for exposure and possible endorsements of brands or scholarships for winners of the pageants (Wolf, 2013).For years, women have been subjected to contests that seek to identify the most beautiful amongst them. Like cattle being taken to a slaughterhouse, women are paraded and subjected to a rigorous exercise of identifying the fairest of them all. The losers sometimes leave the contests feeling disgruntled and unappreciated with their self-esteem in tatters (Wolf, 2013).In addition to the psychological torture, they experience women in beauty pageants also expose themselves to dangerous beauty products and

Even without beauty pageants, the amount of pressure girls feel to conform to society’s standards of beauty is immeasurable. When girls participate in pageants, the pressure is multiplied as they trot around on stage being judged on only their outward appearance. “The message these little girls take away is that their natural beauty isn’t enough- that their