The Miss American Pageants Are A Perfect Example Of The American Dream

Getting caught up in the extravaganza of bikinis, singing and sashaying, can be easy. One may never forget when Steve Harvey awarded Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutiérrez with the crown instead of the rightful champion Miss Philippines Pia Wurtzbach during the Miss Universe Competition in 2015. A whole lot more goes into beauty pageants than what meets the eye. Several systems take place in the pageant world that empower women. The Miss America Organization has the most driven, intelligent, and compassionate women when it comes to success.

The double standard within this event was brought to light in 1983 when the first black Miss America was crowned. However Vanessa Williams was forced to resign her crown when Penthouse published explicit photos of her. “This displays the doubles standards of the beauty pageants,” Gloria Steinem commented (Jenainati 111). “It judges women on their physical appearance yet condemns them force revealing their physicality on the grounds of immorality,” said Benjamin Cook (111). The Miss America pageants continue on today but they no longer take place in Atlantic

The tradition of a contest of beauty among women has been around for hundreds of years, but the origins of Miss America come from Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1921. In the years preceding, women's rights were emerging and restrictions against the public display of a women were lightened. With the goal of increased profits, the Businessmen's League of Atlantic City planned several events to keep vacationers interested past Labor Day, calling the Fall Frolic. Among the events was a contest of beautiful women in bathing suits. On September 8th, 1921, an audience of 100,000 crowded the boardwalk to witness this event. This winner of this contest selected by a panel of judges was a sixteen-year-old Margaret Gorman who was awarded one hundred dollars

Were we trying to encourage people not to watch the show? Were we trying to get parents to stop subjecting their kids to the emotional trauma of competing in these pageants? We decided to go with a little of both in the end because beauty pageants themselves are a deeply imbedded part of southern culture and wouldn’t be going away anytime soon. That doesn’t mean the spread of this activity couldn’t at least be slowed down a little, and that some people may not want to watch the show after seeing the

“Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect” notes that girls are being conditioned to accept gender norms at an early age be it by “toys, clothing, and play activities” (Hanes 487). Pageants being one of these so called play activities. Young girls are being influenced by these pageants to accept certain stereotypes that are associated with women in general. They are being taught at these events that pink is a girl color, girls should stick to dresses, and that women should be pretty are all harmful byproducts of this industry that doesn’t seem to realize the dangers it is creating. And while some might assume that this type of thinking is not something of concern and “girls will be girls,” the truth is that it is of a grave concern. For these gender stereotypes confer back to a period of time when women were expected to subservient towards men, women were expected to look pretty and act nice, all in the hopes of attracting attention for the sake of someone, usually men. This exactly what these child beauty pageants teach, that girls should act, look, and feel pretty for the sake of validation. Usually the validation is asked from men, but it can also be from other women. Regardless, the end goal is still the same troubling one, child beauty pageants instill in girls with the belief that a women’s value is

Pageants teach young contestants to value physical beauty over inner beauty. They brainwash girls

Beauty pageants claim "oh, we're building character" and "we're letting girls feel beautiful". Being pampered with makeup masks only hides everything that defines them as a women. If pageants are the only way for girls too feel beautiful, that's going against everything we're teaching the youth. They teach kids that beauty is on the outside and not the inside. Judging off of every thing visually, simply does every thing but build character, but breaks down their confidence and self-esteem. Glorifying everything visually causes women to focus on every thing but the things which will stick with them much after their glory days, like their

The first glimpse of america's beauty obsession starts at childhood. In modern day America there seems to be an obsession with child beauty pageants. Americans are obsessed with shows like “Toddlers in Tiaras” and “Honey Boo Boo”. They do not even think twice before turning on these

Glitz, glamour, lights action, let’s welcome contestant number five! Anyone who has ever tuned in to watch or attended a beauty pageant will be familiar with the extravagance of it all. One knows they’ve entered the pageant world after you’ve noticed the lavish ball gowns, tight curls, cans of hair spray, and sequin swimsuits all in the same place. Since the launching of Miss America in 1921, thousands of girls have tried their luck at becoming the next Miss U.S.A. For any aspiring pageant star, becoming the next Miss Universe or Miss America is very quintessential, but these titles are not the only ones aimed for. There are thousands of pageants held each year across the United States, offering different incentives and titles; and depending

We hear songs degrading woman and watch films were women are reduced to nothing more than eye candy, or just someone who’s only there to help the main male lead. One of the most show that degrades women are beauty pageants. Beauty pageants place women based on their looks, in the older pageants would give points based on the size of their head, torso, and limbs. A talk show host by the name of John Oliver mentions that most beauty pageants but points out the “Miss America Pageant” and how they claim to be the “World’s largest scholarship provider for women”. The Miss America pageants states that they give 45 million dollars towards scholarships. These type of beauty pageants aren’t always watch because of the contestants, but are watched because of the mistakes that would be showed, or how foolish the contestants look while answering questions. The show then states “Beginning with the Seneca falls convention in 1848 that’s the first wave feminism the perception of women in American has always been complex and fluid”. The way America sees women is very confusing, it could have started when women and African-Americans were denied the right to vote because they weren’t considered Americans because they could not provide for the

Nine Year olds in mini skirts. Pageants in America are very popular, especially Children´s. What parents do not realize about them is that it makes their children want to look a certain way. Another is the predator potential of having their child exposed in little outfits. Children are still worried about how they look today, but they start younger. As early as the 1960´s The Little Miss America began. Although pageants were meant for teens thirteen to seventeen they started  having younger competitors. Now they can compete as young as babies. They can grow up with thinking it is good to wear pounds of makeup so young and with the standard of having to be so skinny. Pageants are still relevant today and are still going on causing the little girls to still deal with this problem. Children in Beauty Pageants are affected negatively by leading to body image issues, the overall cost and wanting to reach perfection.

A numerous amount of people agree that these events are extremely damaging to the well being of their contestants. Places such as Australia, Ireland, and especially France have been seeing many protests against having American child beauty pageants in their country (Miet). And in some capacity, it seems like they are actually working. In the September of 2013, The French Senate banned these child beauty pageants by prohibiting anyone under sixteen from participating in any such contest that judges them solely on their looks and beauty. Even approving of these events can get you fined $40,000 (Miet). Of course, some parents will always defend the pageant world, saying that it has a positive impact on their kids. They claim that the children have a lot of fun and they get to have time in the spotlight

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

Growing up, fashion and make-up were never part of my life. I have never liked wearing skirts or dresses, I have no idea how to apply make-up, and I do not have any desire to do either. However, as I grew up, I realized that was not the norm of my friends, or “women” in general. When thinking about this paper, I suddenly recalled an episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, where he discussed the Miss America Pageant. I had heard of the pageant before, but I never knew they were a scholarship foundation until watching his show. The Miss America Pageant has been in existence for nearly one hundred years, yet they still judge women primarily on their physical beauty; making it difficult to believe their true mission is to want to help change the lives of young women across America. Though they state they are an organization for women, they enforce anti-feminist and patriarchal views of women.

Beauty pageants may seem harmless and fun, the audience only sees what goes on in front of the curtains. What goes on when the curtains close and you enter backstage, is a whole different story. Society today has come up with the idea that there is a certain image women must portray, and when girls see that they do not look like that image, they start to develop cognitive, physical and psychological problems (Cromie, 2000). According to