Women's "empowerment"

Miss America contestants are "empowered" by the bathing suit section of the pageant. As I listen to Dee-Ann Kentish-Rogers Great Britain's Miss Universe, I can't help but think what she means by empowered. Do they feel confident being constantly ridiculed and objectified by random people? I may have a different opinion than the pageant girls, but I think that beauty pageants feed into how our society treats women. It sets unachievable body and beauty norms for girls as young as six years old. Miss Universe makes beauty interchangeable with a women's right to an education. These are just a few examples as to why people judging women based on their physical features is not okay. 

Miss Universe is the biggest women scholarship organization, proving that women still have to fit into beauty stereotypes. What I still have yet to comprehend is how are pageant girls paying for all the makeup, hair, and "butt products" for numerous years and are still needing a scholarship for college. What I am getting at here is that in order to actually achieve this scholarship you have to have already put lots of time and money into pageants throughout your life in order to be given the gift of an education. This is another reason why Miss Universe's statement about the biggest scholarship organization is unfair. Miss Universe's scholarship demands countless effort into women's looks and the way they walk across that stage. Most people needing scholarships are not focused on spending money on their kid's beauty pageants but rather family necessities, making this opportunity inaccessible to most girls. It has nothing to do with how hard the girls worked throughout high school or how involved they were with their own communities. I do however understand and appreciate how hard some girls work in order to win pageants and competitions. Some girls put in countless hours in order to achieve the perfect look and trust me that is no easy task. However, I disagree with the structure and depth of the pageants. They lack any substance besides the looks of the girls, which is only one aspect of a woman. I am very interested to see how the remake of pageants go because they need to change in order to diminish women's stereotypes. I understand that there is a history behind beauty pageants but that does not give our society the right to objectify girls. If our society continues pageants there needs to be a more respectful and meaningful way to "judge" them on who they are rather than what they look like.