Are beauty pageants empowering or are they a pick-me tournament?

throwaway_head_ache · 2021-09-13T15:04:09+00:00

I think "empowering" or "empowerment" is kind of a bs term. Its used for activities for women that are usually sexual or already feminine: wearing makeup, being judged based on your conventional attractiveness, creating porn. These things don't actually create an equal or equitable playing field for women in our society. Im already expected to look pretty, wear makeup, be thin, and be sexual all in ways that walk the line between "not enough" and "too much." Participating in these types of activities does not get women more respect, safety, or equal rights. And saying we participate in these out of choice or that these things bring us more power is a lie we tell ourselves.

catlady4u · 2021-09-13T14:32:06+00:00

Pageant expenses are def a waste of money that could go toward a college education, since there can only be one winner and a runner-up or two. It's a bad investment, at the very least.

Pageants are literally 'Pick me! Pick me!'

bubblegumsparkles · 2021-09-13T14:53:48+00:00

Definitely a pick-me convention, look at the usually ugly fat old men judges/hosts. It caters solely to the male gaze similar to the issue VS ran into with their fashion shows.

ChickaDeeD33 · 2021-09-13T15:11:41+00:00

The answer is in the title. It is a beauty pageant. Yes, over the years they have added the flavour of giving the girls personality and character and doing good around the world and scholarships and blah blah blah. In the end, it's all about "look at the slabs of pretty girl meat and tell me which you think is the prettiest so we can put a shiney crown on top and call her a winner so all the other girls in the world will see what we approve of and will try harder to be more like this pretty meat."

MelatoninNightmares · 2021-09-13T16:37:02+00:00

Pageants are awful. All that talk about charity and scholarships and "empowerment" is just marketing. It takes thousands of dollars to be a pageant queen - probably hundreds of thousands over a lifetime, because nobody even gets to those big-name pageants without "training" for them since childhood. Pageants don't give out nearly as much money in scholarships or charity as they claim to, and it doesn't outweigh the cost of getting to them.

And the whole point is to present these women as eligible bachelorettes, the pinnacle of what a "marriagable" woman "should" be. Married women and women with children (regardless of marital status) can't compete in Miss America. And if you win, you cannot get engaged or pregnant during your reign. In fact, you're strongly discouraged from dating while competing or reigning.

Even the actual parts of the competition are obviously about outdated expectations for an upper-class wife. You have to be beautiful. You have to look good in an evening gown. The Q&A portion shows that you can participate in conversations in a charmingly intelligent way - but not too intelligent, since then you might say something controversial or divisive, and we can't have that. You have to have a social cause to champion, because when you're a socialite wife you need to have something to occupy your time and charities and social causes are what socialite wives do. (Similar to the tradition for the First Lady to have a pet social cause.) You can't be any older than 25, because any good woman should be married by then.

So yeah, it's quite literally a Pick Me Competition.

MixWide · 2021-09-13T16:57:47+00:00

Easy way to tell if something is empowering:

Do men in power do the thing?

hedgehog090 · 2021-09-13T14:52:19+00:00

I see women trying to reclaim pageants in a similar vein to women trying to reclaim sex work, watching porn, etc. as "empowering".

It's an industry that obviously objectifies/dehumanises women and values looks as a woman's most important asset.

I have an acquaintance whose life revolves around pageants and it's horrifying to see the cognitive dissonance of her starving herself, wearing hair extensions, spray tan, false lashes, parading in a bikini to a panel of male judges, etc. while claiming that modern pageants are no longer shallow and sexist like they used to be.

Maude2010 · 2021-09-13T16:01:11+00:00

We don’t have televised judging of men’s bodies for scholarships…

Peak_Tree · 2021-09-13T15:36:02+00:00

Pick me convention and in my country the contestants were endorsed by ( and indebted to) drug lords quite literally.

This is the problem with choice libfeminism. Just because a woman does something it doesn't make it empowering, feminist and much less good for women a a group. You have to make the right choices like men do (How many men are there talking about men pageants being empowering and signing up fo those in droves?)

Optimal_Grapefruit_5 · 2021-09-13T16:15:17+00:00

If beauty pageants were empowering for women as a class, most participants would be men and they'd be actively trying to keep women out.

I can see why they can be fun, but empowering? In general no; maybe they can at an individual level. "Toss a coin to the most fuckable piece of meat" isn't the progressive celebration of femininity that libfems are trying to make it out to be.

On top of what you already mentioned, it's a pay-to-win competition. If you can afford the best gown, the best coaches, the best hair and makeup professionals you have a significant advantage over women who can afford less.

Big_Illustrious_Vag · 2021-09-13T15:49:47+00:00

Women’s talents, activities, activism, careers, educational aspirations that are exploited and put on display for these pageants are like handbags, jewelry or other accessories they might carry with them on stage. Cute, but doesn’t mean much.

Fuck pageants.

InaneObservations · 2021-09-13T17:49:46+00:00

People are fucking high if they think that beauty pageants are in any way feminist.

All beauty pageants do is judge and award the ideal female companion. They're basically a replica of the process of choosing a concubine for a king. That's what they're judging. Beauty, physique, ability to dress formally, ability to sound interesting, a talent. But in what context? The context of being the ideal female companion.

That's it. The scholarships and everything else were just added to obscure the original goal.

The women who participate and are able to succeed are not "empowered." They're just exceptionalist.

Risas1239 · 2021-09-13T15:03:02+00:00

Why are you doubting yourself and making it a discussion? There’s nothing feminist about beauty pageants. One famous pageant leader looks at a woman, draws a face on paper, and tells her- “you should get this and this surgery so you look like this”

Painfulmenstruation · 2021-09-13T15:49:31+00:00

IMO, they are pick-me tournaments.

bootyinspector9000 · 2021-09-13T17:10:58+00:00

I think they're absolutely disgusting

Emergency-Feed8216 · 2021-09-13T18:12:51+00:00

Where are the visibly disabled contestants? Where are the unshaven pits and legs?

EmPoWeriNg my ass.

honestlyidkfr · 2021-09-13T17:53:31+00:00

just because they’ve pulled the “empowering” and “celebrating femininity” spin on it doesn’t make it better. society did the same to prostitution, to kink, to 50/50 and low effort… it’s still objectification / harmful to women.

BxGyrl416 · 2021-09-13T21:32:52+00:00

When men wear skimpy outfits, starve themselves, spend thousands of dollars on make-up and hair removal, and are objectified on a stage, maybe I’ll see it another way.

tzijo · 2021-09-13T17:56:18+00:00

The scholarships thing is such a lie. It's a way to break into the entertainment industry and/or raise your social profile. It's useful in the sense that it'll teach you to present yourself to strangers in a way they'll find captivating. But pageants are very misogynistic and helps perpetuate the patriarchy.

ButterfliesHurricane · 2021-09-13T17:34:56+00:00

There’s nothing empowering being put there and judged on your looks no matter what the end scope is, objectifying women for profit, charity or whatever else is still projecting the image that you don’t need to have anything to say, shut up snd be pretty. I’m not sure about the inclusion of more non-white ladies. It’s less racist but still misogynistic so definitely not a win for them imo!

IDontAgreeSorry · 2021-09-13T18:15:08+00:00

Ofcourse they’re not empowering for women. They’re empowering only the male gaze.

Leninasince1986 · 2021-09-13T14:21:14+00:00

In the recent Gail Dines ep on the podcast they talk about the difference between female liberation and empowerment. In my opinion beauty pageants are regressive and hinder liberation, but they can be empowering for the particular women who participate, even if not for women as a whole.

A woman that competes in this, that is good looking and charismatic, if she’s disciplined and savvy can build a successful career in media and it can be empowering for her. Likewise, it can also give her upward mobility because she can move in wealthier and more prestigious circles and secure a mate there, for example.

I think it’s a means to an end that can certainly empower certain specific women, if they use the platform to their benefit. But it’s not liberating her, it’s her playing the system.

But as to pageants and pageant culture giving a benefit for women as a class? I see none at all.

Outrageous-Knowledge · 2021-09-13T20:17:14+00:00

They’re not. Do they give the women actual power? (Economic, legal, etc)? No. They also only celebrate made up “hyperfemininity”.

s_slayer · 2021-09-13T21:25:52+00:00

I might be more open minded to them if their were equal male pageants but there obviously isn't. I've always found them creepy and then when I found out Trump was behind them I was really creeped out. He always talked about women as if our entire worth was how we looked. That's very damaging to young women and I would like to see these contests go away entirely tbh.

Gourmay · 2021-09-13T22:58:55+00:00

Exactly. It doesn’t matter how many WAP songs, Dove commercials etc. I think the sooner we step away from valuing women for their appearance, the better our world will be.

ExistentialJelly · 2021-09-13T20:30:17+00:00

Child beauty pageants need to be banned imho.

Adult beauty pageants give me the creeps and set a weird precedent that woman are on display to be judged at all times. I've heard too much about mental health issues and eating disorders being spurred by pageants that I can't support them.

AdmiralRando · 2021-09-13T17:31:15+00:00

I listened to the beginning of an NPR interview with an author who wrote a book about the history of the Miss America Pageant, and two other guests who had won the pageant in previous years. During their introduction they both explained that they didn’t consider themselves the “pageant type” and that they only joined for the scholarship money.

If we paid for college as a nation (because it’s good for a nation to have an educated citizenry) these pageants would basically disappear overnight.

fatoldworm · 2021-09-13T18:21:12+00:00

Femininity is a prison and celebrating all the consumerist aspects of it will never do anything for women besides reinforce the idea that we’re little beyond decorative objects

scooter_se · 2021-09-13T20:58:08+00:00

Pageants are the largest providers of college scholarships to women in the US… and it’s entirely based off of appearance

fireforestfairy · 2021-09-14T11:38:52+00:00

Beauty pageants sells the idea that that the most attractive women look and act a certain way. Even if recent winners look more "diverse", winners of beauty pageants are usually white or whitish-looking, tall, and skinny but "curvy" in the right areas. I can't help but feel like there's some tokenism involved. The competitors are also ok with wearing a lot of makeup, high heels, bikinis, and dresses and act "feminine". These pageants create the impression that you have to be a certain way to be "beautiful".

You also need need remember that there are male beauty pageants but they tend to be way less popular than female beauty pageants and I doubt this is a coincidence. I guess male CEOs are less interested in funding male beauty pageants, and men are more likely to prioritise looks when picking women than the other way around.

povofme · 2021-09-13T18:24:40+00:00

Um no they’re definitely not feminist lol. Libfems just like to say that anything that exists that one woman likes to do is suddenly feminist. Which is not how it works. There are women who self objectify themselves. Women can do things without it having to be feminist, but libfems like to preach that anything a woman enjoys is feminist maybe because of their guilty conscience or something 🤷‍♀️

I don’t expect that everything a feminist does has to be strictly feminist, you can do things that aren’t but just don’t go around trying to convince people that it is actually feminist lol

FDSfollower1 · 2021-09-14T04:40:56+00:00

I only know one pageant winner IRL, a neighbor who is just an acquaintance. At every neighborhood event, no matter what - think Easter, Santa Claus, picking up trash at the park, etc. etc. she always mentions that she is a pageant winner and that the children would like to see her in her crown and gown, she'll be there in full regalia. The children are not even remotely interested in her. It's very weird.

glitterandspark · 2021-09-13T17:11:37+00:00

They’re a pick me tournament but I wish the concept could be reclaimed in an educational fashion rather than a competitive one. Kind of like etiquette classes or cotillion. The reality is being a well heeled, gracious, and poised woman in society still opens doors. Some of us enjoy being that kind of lady but for ourselves and our own accomplishments, without the man or the creepy male gaze. I feel like how to have poise, and how to be proper is an education only privileged women get.

K0rla · 2021-09-14T10:56:48+00:00

If being a piece of meat to look at were empowering, all men would love to be that.

warinmymind94 · 2021-09-14T19:36:39+00:00

I never liked it. Beauty isn't just physical but also personality as cliche as that sounds.

Pagents are pushed on young girls, even toddlers, and it sends this toxic message to them that women have to look like a perfect model and compete with each other. Often sends the message that you also need to spend hundreds of dollars on costumes, hair, makeup, etc to be "beautiful".

Some pagents are more about talent or more natural but generally speaking pagent culture is toxic.

ennu_i_sao · 2021-09-13T21:19:59+00:00

Girl can I say I absolutely love your parenthetical and the source you included.

_defy_death · 2021-09-13T21:08:55+00:00

They are the best chance of a scholarship

Title	Are beauty pageants empowering or are they a pick-me tournament?
Author	GabbaG0ul
Upvotes	390
Comments	72
Date	September 13, 2021 2:16 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/pngc92/are_beauty_pageants_empowering_or_are_they_a/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/are-beauty-pageants-empowering-or-are-they-a-pick.1068924 https://theredarchive.com/post/1068924

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