Beauty pageants and feminist anger
Editorial
THE BEAUTY pageant in which scantily-clad young women showcase their bodies has been one of the most reviled targets of post-modern feminism. And in the heady days of the late 1960s, when feminist activism achieved a radicalism that was definitely anti-male, participants in beauty contests were deemed `cattle'. They were thought to be too `dumb' to resist playing the role of sex object to lecherous men. However, in the last 30 years, beauty contests have not declined in the least, and judging from events in Guyana, if anything, such pageants are proliferating and assuming various guises. For this year, Guyana has witnessed contests for the titles of Miss Bartica, Miss University of Guyana, Miss Guyana, Miss Sari, and Miss Millennium (Guyana). Morvinia Sobers, Miss Guyana 1999, participated in the Miss Universe contest which was held in Trinidad and Tobago in May. And Ms Renee McCalman, winner of the Miss Millennium Guyana 2000, will be travelling to Finland to participate in an international event to be held early in January. On Sunday the African Heritage pageant will be staged at the National Cultural centre and later this month the fabulous Miss Guyana Queen of Queens contest comes off in Georgetown. Even as this column is being written, Ms Indra Changa, who represented Guyana at last weekend's Miss World contest in the United Kingdom, is returning home after the heady experience of that premier international event. All this activity can only mean that contests organised to select the most pleasing female are far from being on the wane, never mind the dust-up by feminists who lobbed flour bombs and scuffled with Police in the vicinity of the Miss World Pageant in London last week. While most people utter platitude about inner beauty being more important than perfection of physical form, they are as eager as beauty pageant believers to assess contestants and pick their winners when any one of the fast-paced, glittering shows is telecast. Over the years, contest organisers became conscious of the criticisms levelled at pageants and factored in intelligence tests and talent items. The rationale was to show that the modern pageant contestant is not only a person of beauty, but that she had a developed intellect and admirable talents. More and more college women were encouraged to compete and in some North American contests, the talent segments can feature some rather intimidating opera divas and concert pianists. Perhaps the ultimate beauty-with-brains creature was the delightful Batswana, Mpule Kwelagobe who stunned the millions watching the Miss Universe 1999 contest with her comment about "embracing" her femininity. Asked what she would do were she to find herself pregnant while being a reigning Miss Universe, Mpule replied: "Miss Universe is also a representative of womanhood. When you enter a beauty pageant, you do symbolise women and women do get pregnant. I do not see being pregnant interrupting anything I have to do in my life. That's what it's all about - celebrating the fact that you are a woman and that you can bear children." Not even a radical feminist can fault this assertion.
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