"VFA is a nonprofit organization for veterans of the Second Wave of the feminist movement. The goals are to enjoy the camaraderie forged during those years of intense commitment, to honor ourselves and our heroes, to document our history, to rekindle the spark and spirit of the feminist revolution and act as keeper of the flame so that the ideals of feminism continue to reverberate and influence others."
Miss America Pageant - While sifting through the articles on this website, I encountered this article
that states essentially that there should no longer be a Miss America Pageant. These pageants are
extremely problematic in the sense that they in a way hyper-sexualize women, and give young girls
role models with ideal beauty in mind. While yes, they aren't shown as a Victoria Secret Fashion show, but they still promote a message to young girls that they are to look a certain way, and act a certain way in order to be socially accepted within society.
that states essentially that there should no longer be a Miss America Pageant. These pageants are
extremely problematic in the sense that they in a way hyper-sexualize women, and give young girls
role models with ideal beauty in mind. While yes, they aren't shown as a Victoria Secret Fashion show, but they still promote a message to young girls that they are to look a certain way, and act a certain way in order to be socially accepted within society.
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| First Black Miss America - Vanessa Williams |
The article in question was written during a time where Black women weren't even eligible to enter. While, this has now changed majority of winners remain white females. "Our purpose was not to put down Miss America but to attack the male chauvinism, commercialization of beauty, racism and oppression of women symbolized by the Pageant. We arrived on the Boardwalk at 2 p.m. Saturday and began picketing in front of Convention Hall. Some of our signs read: "Everyone is Beautiful," "I am a Woman, Not a Toy, Pet or Mascot," "Who Dares to Judge Beauty," and "Welcome to the Miss America Cattle Auction." Commercialization of beauty has become increasingly problematic, and with a neo-liberal capitalist society is only ever increasing. Consumption has become huge, and the lengths women go to now in order to endorse beauty is detrimental to women's health across the globe. Stemming from bleaching treatments to look white, or Asian women going in for plastic surgery to make their eyes look more like a white woman's eyes. The fact that in some villages where woman are considered beautiful when they are curvy is ever changing because of media. These women are instead starving themselves to fit this ideal that the Miss America pageant helps promote. Jessica Simpson reveals some of these destructions on her show the Price of Beauty. Where she goes all over the world, and sees how different woman define beauty.
Continuing on the website itself has a lot to offer, I'm speaking to a specific article that struck my interest, but it has poems about women, and various other resources to sift through and learn from and is all in all empowering.
I have a question... there is no male equivalent to pageants?
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