The harm of beauty pageants

Beauty pageants are something very common in our society - from prom queen to Miss World, beauty pageants have been defining the ‘desirable beauty’ and has that body image coerced down the throats of women who come in all shapes and sizes and diverse talents and personalities.

We at KK have featured beauty queens prior to this but it was mostly because of the recognition of darker skin tone like Nina Davuluri, Priyanka Yoshikawa, Ariana Miyamoto and our own Moganasundari Mahalinggam and the 2016 Miss Malaysia Tatiana Kumar.

To qualify for these beauty pageants, a woman has to be of certain age (18-25), of certain height (tall) and weight (willowy) If a woman’s profile is a bit off than that, then she’s not legible.

Beauty pageants participants’ worth is weighed by how well they catwalk and smile and parade swimsuits and dresses. Sure, there are talent and intelligence evaluations but they are just a small part of the events and not particularly significant and intellectual - the question asked to a finalist in Miss Malaysia Indian Global, “If you could romance a man, who would it be and why.” I mean, is that the best intellect evoking question one can come up with?

Sure, beauty pageant finalists do a lot of charity and life changing work but the question remains, can’t the average woman do such work also?

Beauty pageants remain as a voyeur tool. That is also not the worst facet on beauty pageants. The suggestion that anything more than size 0 is not pulchritude sends women starving themselves, becoming bulimic or anorexic which are just as unhealthy as obesity. I had a friend who developed eating disorder because she wanted to be thin thus pretty.

A false ideal on what makes a beautiful woman is being perpetuated by beauty pageants. Don’t get me wrong - I am not against beauty pageants. I just think they should be more inclusive and explore a diversity of talents that actually represent more women out there and gives an idea that all women are beautiful in their own way.