Childhood Beauty Pageants Should Be Banned

Beauty Pageants Should Be Banned

Child Beauty Pageant Practices (Busting, 2011)

Overview of the Pageant

Beauty pageants started it the 1920s when the owner of an Atlantic City hotel came up with the idea as an attraction to boost tourism revenues. The idea caught on in a handful of cities that would hold versions of a "Most Beautiful Child" contests across the country. Over the years this industry expanded in 1964 to include children adn there were over 35,000 participants which prompted the need to begin to use different age divisions to separate the children. Today, the child pageant industry has boomed and the level of competition has reached unprecedented heights.

Now there are over 25,000 individual pageants held each year and the industry is estimated to generate over a billion dollars each year (Busting, 2011). However, the growth of this industry has prompted many researchers to consider the consequences that these types of competitions can have for children; especially those who compete at the higher levels. Many children are virtually forced to compete in these pageants regardless of their own desire. This analysis will focus on the darker side of the beauty pageant for children and propose that this is a form of child abuse that should be banned.

Argument

Many of the negative aspects of the new heights and level of competition that the child beauty pageant have reached can best be illustrated with this brief passage (Wolfe, 2012):

She throws off her white kimono to reveal a gold mini-halter dress that fits tightly against the curves of her body. 2 She places one hand behind the back of her head and the other just below her cone-shaped "Madonna" bra, gyrating and shaking her hips to the music as the audience hoots and cheers its approval. 3 "Go get it, Mia!" shouts an excited voice from the crowd. 4 Who is this sexy dancing diva? Is she a Las Vegas showgirl? An exotic dancer at a nightclub?

The dancer is two-year-old Mia, and her performance earned her the coveted title of Mini Grand Supreme, the highest honor for her age group (zero to three years old) at the Universal Royalty Texas State Pageant in Austin, Texas.

Women have been perceived as sexual objects by individuals and society in general throughout the course of history. However, never before have these portrayals included girls as young as two. If women wish to perpetuate this image of sexual objectification on their own accord then that is one thing; however, a two-year-old is far from having the mental capacity to make this decision for themselves.

The beauty pageant industry in general has evolved into a freak show where the young girls have spray tans, wear flippers (false teeth to hide baby teeth), hair extensions, makeup, fake eyelashes and many other tricks to make them appear older and more sexual (way before puberty has emerged for these girls). Childhood beauty pageants should be banned because they cause psychological problems, it sexualizes children, and they cause a financial drain on families. William Pinsof, a clinical psychologist and president of the Family Institute at Northwestern University said, " Being a little Barbie doll says your body has to be a certain way and your hair has to be a certain way. In girls particularly, this can unleash a whole complex of destructive self-experiences that can lead to eating disorders and all kinds of body distortions in terms of body image. (Nussabaum, 2013)"