The Danger of Joining Beauty Pageants

Allysa Ashley M. Ganotice & Eidelvice L. Pantaleon

Beauty pageants are widely popular today especially among women of all
nationalities due to its entertaining aspects. According to Cambridge Dictionary,
beauty pageant is a “competition in which women are judged on how physically
attractive they are”. According to The New Times (2012), the first modern pageant
was done in 1854 staged by P.T. Barnum. Since then, beauty pageants became
popular in most societies and exposed in local, national, and international
pageants across the globe. Pageants like Miss Universe, Miss International, Miss
Earth and Miss World are some of the famous categories of pageants. Beauty
pageants are very popular like in the Philippines where they fill the calendar all
year round from small time local competitions to more colorful carnival
competitions. But, despite of the popularity of beauty pageants, there were
groups of women who were against this event. There were series of protests in the
1970s towards beauty pageants. This is because Feminist viewed beauty contests
as a way of portraying women as sexual objects. With this, are beauty contests
good for girls? Pageants are not good for girls since it has a bad impact especially
to their self-esteem. It can result to physical problems, health problems and is
financially impractical.

On the other hand, people who strongly believe that pageants are good
for girls argue that pageants can be a platform for young women. They claim that
beauty pageants provide important life skills for young women plus it gives them
confidence. (citation). They also argue that pageants can change the world. This
is because in pageants especially the big ones, the crown and title comes with
responsibilities. The Himalayan Times (2017) said that winners from big pageants
have their advocacies like empowering women and youth. They are also
engaged in social work to uplift the underprivileged and are marginalized to help
and this makes a change in the society and in the world. However, these
arguments are unacceptable. Pageants are most dangerous for young women
because joining in these events can make them suffer financially and inputs in
their young minds that physical appearance is the foundation of self-value
(Reference, 2019). Also, beauty pageants do not change the world. Winners from
pageants will only gain popularity but will never showcase an important work for
the society and for the world (Nabin & Mahendranagar, 2017). Beauty pageants
are more on glamour which only focuses on physical beauty and body curvature
rather than promoting advocacies for a better world.
Joining in beauty pageants will just damage one’s ego. According to a teacher
of self-esteem, MacCutcheon (2017), the main focus of pageants is on
appearance, glitz, and glam. She highlighted that in beauty pageants, those who
are “pretty” and “in shape” were the ones who are highly acknowledged and
considered by advertisers and the media while the truth is physical appearance
is only one factor among the many qualities that make a woman a beauty.
Beauty pageants, she said, is potentially harmful to a woman’s healthy self-
esteem. Bahl (2014) also said that unlike sports which is focused on aesthetics and
graceful lines, beauty contests can cause lower self-esteem and issues with body
image. She emphasized what Nicole Hunter, a former beauty pageant
contestant, said that she doesn’t even know what it is to feel attractive without a
makeup on her face for she was taught to wear it since she was young by her
mother. This, she said was an effect of joining beauty pageants: you will not be
yourself anymore. Aside from damaging one’s ego, joining beauty pageants is
also financially impractical. Peters (2014) summarized the total cost of joining big
pageants like Miss USA. The dress costs 700-1000 dollars of the rack, 5 000 dollars
bespoke and 8 000-10 000 dollars for the major pageants. The pageant coach
initially has a fee of 300 dollars a week while hair and makeup costs 250 dollars
per hour. There are still many other expenses in joining a pageant and the
minimum total costs is 12 325 US dollars. She emphasized that the amount of
money stated was more than some people can make in an entire year. With this
amount of money, it is better if people spend their money on more practical
matters like in a child’s education. Fleishman (2002) also agreed to the idea that
joining beauty pageants costs a lot. She said that the pursuit of the title and the
crown has grown into a S5 billion-a-year according to the Pageant News Bureau.
Parents, as told by her, were even taking out loans to pay for the pageant
expenses. This results to additional financial stress to them that they get mad and
scold their children when they lose the pageant says Rapport (2002), a
psychology professor.

Moreover, some people believe that pageants motivate women to be the

best version of themselves. Beauty pageants put idealized representations of
femininity on public display. It motivates women to be at their best and they can
inspire other women. But, we all know that those who joins the pageants are
beautiful, thin and single. In connection to the norms, pageants require a
respectable background, primarily with regard to marital status and sexual
relations. Naturally, thin women are more likely to join the pageant, many of them
go overboard on restricting their consumption and spending long hours at the
gym. They are literally starving to achieve the body goals which lead to more
severe physical and health problems. As claimed by Ethiopia (2015), winners of
big name pageants have one thing in common, they are thin. This may result a
great pressure to girls to cope up with the standards. Eating disorder and
depression run rampant among girls because pageants promotes unhealthy
ideals. Women strive to be sexy and being thin is a must which can end up to
suffering from depression and eating disorder. The pressure and stress of
constantly being judge for the appearance takes a large physical toll. Flow
Psychology (2014) stated that the average body mass index of a contestant in
today’s time is 14.3. Contestants face pressure to do more to control their weight.
Hammond (2017) showed that the pressure includes eating too little food to stay
thin or vomiting food once eaten. These conditions are referred as Anorexia and
Bulimia these conditions can have a seriously debilitating effect on an individual’s
body. Furthermore, applying makeup is so common to girls who joins beauty
pageants. The makeup industry has been telling women for years how a little
foundation and dash of mascara can liven up your face instantly however,
applying makeup can have several harmful side effects on skin and body. Daily
Hunt (2015) showed that wearing makeup can cause headaches, acne, skin
allergies, eye infection, infertility, premature ageing, hormonal imbalance,
cancer and skin discoloration because of the chemicals like Diazolidinyl urea and
DMDM Hydantoin which are common ingredients of cosmetic products and are
used as an antimicrobial preservative. These chemicals have been known to
cause headaches, irritation of the mucous membranes and cause damage to
the eyes. Herno (2015) also stated that using chemical-based cosmetics regularly
can have adverse effects on your skin and could even lead to permanent
damage.

Beauty is not determined by what is outside but it is based on what is inside

of one’s heart. Beauty pageants do not measure your self-value instead, it can
endanger it. It can also result to physical problems, health problems and is
financially impractical.
 References

Nabin, J. & Mahendranagar, K. (February 9, 2019). Title come with responsibilities.

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