The History of Beauty Pageants Essay Example

in the ratio of colored women winning titles. According to Ashikari, when the opportunity to study whiteness in Japan, the clear answer was the preference to lighter skin tones and purchasing whiter cosmetics on the rise as having white skin is not just an obsession in the west but to many is seen as a physical distinctive symbol. Cosmetics alone however, is on the smaller end of the spectrum when it comes to economic development which is where the real money is made on the main stage.

In the last couple of decades, third world countries have hosted international pageants as both a form of economic expansion but also as a way to make commercial exchanges with the West. For example, when the Miss Universe pageant was held in Trinidad and Tobago in 1999, there was hardly any protest because the province saw it as a form of potential global financial progress. Edmondson says “Seeking a chance to create economic opportunities for Trinidad by showcasing the country’s rich cultural heritage, the government hoped to introduce the First World audience to Trinidad as a desirable tourist destination. Also, the large and small business communities desired to make money from the event and build business contacts.”

Beauty pageants have been seen by numerous researchers as “tacky” social occasions that date back male-centric pictures of supreme beauty rarely achieved by the vast majority of women. Feminists have been especially vocal about the damage that beauty pageants have done and continue doing in sustaining unattainable bodily and appearance standards. While a great part of the analysis of pageants is clear and certain, judging in pageants generalizes women as symbols and utilizing

women’s bodies for commercial merchandise purposes (an idea I do not personally agree with) a sweeping refusal to break down pageants likewise implies that sociologists might not comprehend their ongoing (and in some parts of the world, growing) popularity. In many pageants, the women that partake are definitely aware of feminist critiques of pageants and in some ethnic pageants compare feminism with “white women” and along these lines recast their own particular cooperation as feminism, however, of another kind. Although Miss America is currently under reign of a new CEO looking to bring the old fashion style with current trends, many spectators and competitors alike wonder if the lifestyle and fitness portion (swimsuit) will still be relevant to the pageant itself and how it could potentially change the Miss America Organization altogether. Similar systems are taking comparable notice. In hopes to branch out from the “Western Whiteness” that is imposed upon the pageant world and hoping to break stereotypes and stigmas, the evolution of pageants such as Miss Vietnam USA, Miss Latina USA, Miss Chinatown USA, Miss India USA and even white-ethnic pageants like Irish Rose of Tralee are all seen as validation that ethnic women and their cultures are beautiful.

Beauty pageants can be sometimes viewed as oppressive and mistreatment, yet they are additionally sites of the production of cultural identity.