Beauty Standards and Ideal Womanhood in Beauty Pageants

Something I struggled with in Miss Universe 2018’s interview was her contention that the swimsuit section was not demeaning but empowering. She said something along the lines of “you don’t need a ‘bikini body,’ you just need to put a swimsuit on your body. I’ve seen quotes/slogans like this in a lot of places, and though I agree with the message, I think it is somewhat ironic in the context of a Miss Universe pageant. Pageants like this have never been huge proponents of body positivity, and to pretend otherwise is either deluded or outright deceptive. It’s true that wearing a swimsuit can be a source of bodily empowerment for many women. But the fact is, you don’t see diverse bodies on the Miss Universe stage. It is a competition for thin, fit women. It galled me to hear this rhetoric of body positivity, when if anything Miss Universe and similar pageants re-enforce unhealthy body images for young girls and women. 

As many pageants try to remake their images, I am also concerned about the messages their rebranding will send. Historically, beauty pageants have served to elevate “ideal” women. They reflect social standards of the time: when natural beauty was glorified the winners were praised for their lack of artifice, and young, wholesome girls were praised for their naïveté and presumed virginity. Now, as these pageants shift to become less superficial “competitions” I fear that the messaging will continue. Particularly, I think it is likely that even if the “beauty” aspect of the pageant is eliminated, in practice the competitions will still only be open to beautiful women. A harmful stereotype in modern media is that all women who are exceptionally talented and virtuous also happen coincidentally to be exceptionally beautiful. Thus, even if these competitions argue that they are measuring intelligence and talent and kindness, they still perpetuate harmful notions of womanhood. They tell young girls that it is important to be smart and kind and pure, but none of that matters if they are not also beautiful.