Beauty Pageants Might Just be Legal Human Trafficking
Picture yourself as a child, maybe ten or eleven, sitting on your couch watching Toddlers and Tiaras or the Miss Universe competition for the first time. Just mesmerized, you stare in awe at the glitz and glamor illustrated on the screen as young girls and women showcased their beauty to us all on a brightly lit stage. The costumes, perfect hair, scarily wide, bright tooth smiles. The visual appeals of these shows were so strangely addicting. You couldn’t help but sit down and watch the TV screen in amazement and concern. Even as a child, I couldn’t help but wonder how much stress you’d have to be under to compete in a competition that seemed just as important as a presidential election. Beauty pageants are ingrained in American culture. We imagined ourselves in that big Swarovski crystal-encrusted crown and the massive bouquet of roses gently placed into our arms. I mean, what more could you ever want in life?
But that thought alone births a habit of highly superficial thinking. Imagine how many young girls’ insecurities exploded just by comparing themselves to the woman who could be a life-sized barbie being praised for being hot. Looking back now, we can’t help but brush off the darkness that encircles the beauty queen culture and the horrible things it has done to the mental health of knee-deep young women. Not to mention how exploitative they are for women, down to who they deem worthy enough to compete. It is time we recognize Miss Universe and other beauty pageants for the insane practices they endorse.
Every year since 1952, the world gathers to pick who they believe to be the most beautiful woman based on the most shallow standards. Pageant partakers deal with the constant pressure of perfection. They are leading many down a hole depending on body enhancements to better their chances of winning. Whether it's filler, breast enhancements, or Lipo, women are often pushed to the limit to be considered worthy of claiming the Miss Universe title. If you think you know what crazy is, just wait until you hear these rules. To even be considered to be a contestant for Miss Universe, you must be:
18 to 27 years old and have a university degree
Childless
Married nor engaged
At one point, you couldn’t even have been divorced or a widow… anybody else see how weird this is? It wasn’t until this year that production changed the rules for mothers and wives to participate for the first time in 70 years. It is almost as if a particular group of women is selected based on naivety. Young women are chosen to be exploited on stage in a room often filled with wealthy people. They are shown off as available to the elite who fund the very production of the Universe show and their counterparts. Beauty pageants are constantly being discussed in the media, not always for the best reasons. Beauty queens have continuously been brought up in scandals based on lying about marital status, drug use, etc. However, CEOs usually take the most credit for the negative buzz. Many of which are responsible for sexual assault, exploitation, and rigging of the contest. With that said, in 2022, the New York Post released an article exposing sexual misconduct allegations against former Miss USA vice president Max Sebrechts, husband to the national director of Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Crystle Stewart. Sebrechts allegedly sent explicit messages to multiple contestants from, well…let’s just say, a range of ages. The pageant world is just getting uglier by the second.
It doesn’t stop there; as mentioned previously, the Toddlers and Tiaras series that ran on TLC for over a decade has also been quite exploitative towards children. Often toddlers are given spray tans, fake teeth, and large wigs, transforming into little women. It’s so odd how parents are willing to take loans out on costumes and flights for competitions their child will hardly remember. It is simply inappropriate for a young child to be involved in a contest that focuses on vanity to such a massive extent.
Beauty pageants were created to build confidence in young women. But they do not empower them whatsoever; pageants have served us nothing but the stress of beauty standards and caused girls to revolve their worlds around physical beauty. They have also exacerbated the objectification of women, allowing them to be seen as bodies simply being rated 1 through 10. We all have fallen victim to poor body image and self-hatred because we have put ourselves on an invisible scale that has only torn women apart. I doubt pageants will go away anytime soon, but I hope they will at least be revamped and inclusive towards all women from different walks of life. All women deserve to be celebrated, not just one select group!
Strike Out,
Gael Laguerre
Boca Raton
Gael Laguerre is the baddest writer for Strike Magazine Boca. She’s a textbook Aquarius: super hyper-independent but also super hot. In her free time, she enjoys music festivals, writing sad poetry, and oversharing on twitter. You can reach her by lgaellynn@gmail.com or Instagram @gael.lynn
