How many times have we subjected ourselves to it?? The bling bling of the flash bulbs followed by the eyes widening, the hand rushing to the mouth in incredulous wonder, and then a prefabricated perfect smile slipping into place while a sash fits in place and yet another woman is crowned – most beautiful of them all.
Beauty contests endorse an ideal of female beauty to which only a very few women can realistically aspire, but it adds to the pressure on all women to conform to it.
Woman in beauty contests are judged largely on their physical appearances, rather than on any other qualities they might possess. Though these pageants try to emphasize on the fact that it is not about physical beauty alone but also about one’s personality, the truth remains that most beauty pageants have as their criteria for participation a minimum height and weight requirement.
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Does it go to say that personality is height and weight based? The participation criteria itself defeats the purpose of the whole exercise.
Beauty pageants are a consumerist celebration at best. There are new titles and crowns to be won. A bulging one hundred and sixty billion dollar-a-year industry has to be fuelled and kept going.
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Women who watch the pageants worldwide, in order to attain the universal norms of beauty, feel compelled to become consumers of a whole range of products whose advertisements only reinforce the views of the pageant that “Success in life can be achieved through physical beauty alone.”
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The truth is that women are being “objectified” and like someone said “they are participating in their own objectification.”
Is the woman who walks the ramp a true woman?? Who is a true woman?? Is she someone who has the perfect hour glass figure created by strenuous exercise and diet and cellulite chiseling off? Is she the lady from the pageant with that million dollar smile the one that has teeth which have been whitened, who’s had a dentist work away the imperfections.
Is she the one with the silicon curves, the one with injected lips that pout??? The true woman is actually not any of these. The true woman is genuinely phenomenal.
She’s as natural as they come. When she walks into a room, men feel compelled to stand. They swarm around her like honey bees while other women turn their heads and look at her enviously. Its not so much her figure, although that helps, its really about the fire in her eyes, the warmth in her smile the touch of her healing hands and the comfort of her breasts.
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A true woman is one who takes pride not just in her own achievements but in the achievements of her family as well. She laughs with you, she cries for you and when the whole world has turned its back on you she will still be standing right behind you.
She loves you beyond reason and forgives you time and again unconditionally. She puts her ambitions on the back burner so she can help her family with theirs. She gives unconditionally, loves beyond reason, and forgives you time and time again. She cries when she is happy, and laughs when she is sad. She takes pride in your achievements and holds your hand through your disappointments. Yes that is the true woman.
You will find her not at a beauty pageant, no! You will find her at the supermarket shopping for groceries, probably dressed in something sturdy like square heels and jeans and a tee shirt. You will find her at a departmental store reaching out for a vial of cream and then hastily putting it down to buy her son a pair of socks instead.
You will find her cheering loudly for her son at a cricket match even when she can’t understand the first thing about the game. You will find her helping the blind cross the street. You will find her at Sunday mass singing herself. Yes that would be her- the real, true woman.