Unit 14

Тематика: культурная жизнь

Текст: Для вас, девчонки!

It’s a Girl Thing

Are pageants good for young women, or do they send the wrong message?

By Jayne Keedle, TEEN NEWSWEEK

Words and phrases

a glittering crown – сверкающая корона

brain – мозги

to recall – вспоминать

makeup – макияж, косметика

swimsuit competition – состязание в купальном костюме

insignificant – незначительный

straightforward – непосредственно

scholarships for winners – стипендии (фонды) для победивших

bathing beauty – прекрасная купальщица

dyed hair – крашеные волосы

mother-daughter bonding experience – мероприятие, опыт, сближающий маму и дочь

In 1998, Kate Shindle wore the glittering crown of Miss America. But she found the experience to be less than dazzling. In a recent column for Newsweek, she described her frustration at being a beauty queen.

“THOUGH I WAS a dean’s list student at Northwestern, suddenly people assumed I didn’t have a brain,” she wrote. As Miss America, Shindle used her position to educate people about AIDS. She helped raise about $20 million for AIDS organizations. But she recalls that once, when she arrived to speak to a group on the topic, the person who greeted her picked up her heaviest case and asked, “Is this the one that holds all the makeup?”

“I didn’t bother to explain that it held my files on AIDS research,” she wrote.

For Shindle, being Miss America raised a lot of questions.

“We’re told it’s about scholarship. We’re told it’s about leadership,” Shindle wrote. “If it’s also about looks, then organizers should admit it, instead of capitalizing on the swimsuit competition while swearing that it is an insignificant part of the show.”

Miss America, which began in 1921, and similar pageants were originally straightforward beauty contests. There were no interviews, no talent competitions, and no scholarships for winners. Young women competed in swimsuits and were known as bathing beauties.

Things began to change in the 1960s and ’70s, after feminists protested that beauty pageants were sexist and demeaning to women. The pageant emphasis then shifted to scholarships. Contestants began to be judged on what they were like on the inside, too, and not just what they looked like on the outside.

But are today’s pageants really different? Or is physical beauty still the bottom line? And even if it is, is there anything wrong with that?

PAGEANTS ARE JUST SKIN DEEP

“We should keep reminding people that women should not be judged principally on looks,” Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation said during a CNN Crossfire debate on pageants.

Child pageants are even more controversial. Some young women have been competing almost since birth. Children as young as 2 or 3 parade in makeup, dyed hair, and adult-style clothes. Critics worry that all that teaches girls to value appearance over substance, and may lead to body image worries as the girls grow up.

“If you grow up in an environment were people are always looking at you, it’s going to affect you,” says Laurel Ward, who placed second in Illinois’s Little Miss Peanut pageant 1976 when she was 6.

“I’d have thought it was inevitably the start of eating disorders,” Ward says. “If you’re winning prizes for being small and cute, it’s going to encourage you to try to stay thin. All that pageants do is reinforce the idea that being beautiful is everything. And why would you want to say that to a child?”

NOT JUST PRETTY FACES

Pageant supporters see it differently. They view children’s pageants not as child exploitation, but as mother-daughter bonding experiences. Supporters say pageants help build self-esteem in girls. They encourage young women to develop poise and public speaking abilities.

“I try to be understanding of this stereotype, ‘Oh, you’re a beauty queen,’” says Katie Horn, who won the Miss Five Boroughs pageant in New York City. “The pageant has helped me focus on talent and scholarship, and be able to speak and know what I stand for.”

The scholarships and prizes are important, too. The Miss America Organization provides more scholarships for women than any other organization in the United States. “Today, the scholarship money is really important,” says Amy Balderston, a teen who competed in the 2001 North Carolina Spot Festival Pageant.

What do you think about beauty pageants? Let us know.

Letters@teennewsweek.com

© 2002 Newsweek, Inc.

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