Beauty pageants are a competition judged on physical beauty and the winners are awarded prizes or titles. Pageants are a very expensive hobby to have. Some people think beauty pageants are terrible to put your child into and others think differently. When many people think of beauty pageants they think of the tv show on TLC called “Toddlers and Tiaras”. This show displays a little behind the scenes of the process of a beauty pageant, but not everything. The process of a beauty pageant is very long, and many do not understand the process behind one. First, a beauty pageant must be chosen to compete in. Beauty pageants take place all over, some are local and others can be out-of-town. Some pageants could have more than one outfit, such as beauty
American beauty pageants got their start in the 1920’s in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was a kind of tourist attraction created by business owners to keep the tourist in town past Labor Day. Not surprisingly, the first competition consisted of only a swimsuit portion. Eventually as pageants grew more popular, more categories were added. It didn’t take long for pageants to gain popularity, the first Miss America Pageant was held in 1921. Pageants grew bigger still with television in the 1950’s, as it allowed mass amounts of people to watch at once. It wasn’t until the The Feminist Act in the 1970’s that people starting viewing pageants as bad (Goldstein). Some people suggest that beauty pageants really hammer the idea that beauty is the most importa...
Rapport, Lisa J. "Child Beauty Pageants: The Real Story Behind the Glitz." Child Beauty Pageants: The Real Story Behind the Glitz. N.p., 30 May 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
Many mothers who allow their children to participate in beauty pageants would argue that performing in the pageants isn’t as stressful and serious as the television shows portray them. In fact, “the pageant industry promotes this idea by advertising pageants as family affairs that are great for a child’s self-esteem and poise” (Wolfe 445). Also, in an article written by Lise Hilbodt-Stolley, a mother of a pageant princess stated “that while pageants may be ‘politically incorrect’ they are drug, alcohol and gang free” (3). However, many parents push their children to win because they are either greedy for the money and fame that accompanies a win, or are living through their young children because of their own feelings of inadequacy. These same parents who are blinded by the possibility of their baby...
Pageants have been around for a long time. In the past, pageants were an interactive way for girls to display poise and to compete against each other in different categories. Nowadays pageants have transformed completely. Young girls are being treated and made up as if they were women or dolls. On the TLC show, Toddlers and Tiaras, we begin to see this trend happening. Girls as young as the age of two to fifteen months are being put into these pageants and are shown off to the world as “role models” to other children. The show starts off with a glimpse of the young girls’ lives. We see how they interact with their families and we get a feel for how they live. Most girls display all their trophies and how well they do in each pageant. All of these young girls display attitudes and throw temper tantrums throughout the show. Parents spend an enormous amount of money for each pageant on things like dresses and make up. Other children who watch “Toddlers and Tiaras” might be impacted due to being the...
Children's beauty pageants are judged by the following: modeling sportswear and evening wear, how well they dance, and how much talent they have. The children themselves are judged by their looks, how well they perform, and how confident they appear. Approximately 250, 000 children participate in pageants each year. Mothers
Child beauty pageants have been a part of American society since the 1960’s (Nussbaum). The children that compete in these contests are usually between the ages of two and eighteen, but there are some cases where the contestants begin competing in child beauty pageants younger than the age of two, or as soon as they are able to walk. Divisions include sportswear, talent, casual wear, swim wear, theme wear, decade wear, evening wear, interview, western wear, and outfit of choice. The child contestants are judged based on poise, perfection, looks, capability, and confidence. The prizes of the child beauty pageants di...
What is involved in this process and who can participate? A beauty pageant is a contest to show off a child’s beauty and talents such as a rehearsed dance. This process can include items such as dresses, make-up, spray tans, and flippers; the total can amount to thousands of dollars! Parents want the best for their kids, so that they will be able to win the “Grand Prize”. The average price of a pageant dress could be close to $4,000 as told by a mom of a pageant kid on Today Pop Culture. The mother’s name is Juana, and she said, “Entry fees for a pageant can be around $400.” To enter a child into a beauty pageant there is a fee and some paperwork to fill out. Contestants can participate from 6 months to 16 years old (Schultz). Money and time is spent on these pageants, when it could be used for the child’s future education, teaching them that the brain is more important than
American’s unneeded celebration of beauty in the pageantry world is digging a hole for the country and has been the contributing factor to the downward spiral we are presently in. The system of this pageant needs to change tremendously in order for it to become a beneficial contest in the future. Beauty pageants to...
"How Do Child Beauty Pageants Affect a Child's Development?" Everyday Life. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014
Issues regarding the purpose of beauty pageants alarm women since majority of the beauty pageants are for them. Let us look at the good side of beauty pageants. First, allows the use...
Beauty pageants demand that competitors spend large amounts of money in synthetic enhancement. This is a poor focus for vulnerable girls and destroys the girls at a very young age. Beauty pageants convince girls that outer beauty is more important than inner beauty, which is totally a false claim. In this paper, we are going to talk about the pros and cons, whys and woes of pageants and if they are manipulative or valuable to kids. Even though that beauty pageants are a good way for girls to make friends. Beauty pageants are harmful to young children and they should not be able to compete until adulthood because beauty pageants teach kids that outer beauty is more important than inner beauty and beauty pageants pose a threat to the safety of children.
Modern beauty contests started in the United States of America in 1880 with the first Miss United States bathing beauty contest held at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Since then, beauty pageants had been popular in many parts of the world. Miss Universe, Miss World and Miss International, participated in every year by more than fifty countries, ceaselessly attracts huge audiences and supporters. The biggest, the Miss World competition, had been running annually since 1951, and although it is less popular in the UK now than it was in 1968, when it attracted 27.5 million TV viewers, it still attracts an enormous worldwide audience of up to 3 billion viewers in 120 countries. [1] Although the main purpose of these pageants are to empower women, the crowned winners are also traveling around the world in order to support causes like HIV/AIDS and children's charity organizations. [2] Due to the success of these internationally produced pageants, various beauty contests for different classes of age, sex and sexuality stemmed up. However, even with the huge diversity, the content of each pageants have almost always been the same: all of them are comprised of the mainstream categories like swimwear portion and evening gown portion. With these content, beauty pageants gives out strong messages regarding what the ideal type of woman is, hence undermining the purpose of a beauty pageant: to empower women. Thus, although beauty pageants contribute to the entertainment of the masses, it promotes an ideal of female beauty that only a minority of women can realistically aspire, objectifies women, further advances cultural insensitivity among its candidates and uses up too much resources which is why it should be banned.
Beauty pageants have long been a form of entertainment, exhibiting beautiful women with ideal bodies competing with their talent and their looks. Many pageant moms involve their daughters in children’s pageants to help them improve their social skills, exercise their talents, and boost their self-esteem. Although the pageants may seem like harmless competition with benefits, research shows that they may be doing the young beauty queens more harm than good. “...the girls are receiving conflicting messages: In order to win, the girls must show a unique personality, but they must also act and dress in a hyper feminine manner and conform to the pageant world 's ideal standard of beauty and narrow set of conventions.” (University of Kansas,
Today there are many new extracurricular activities that occupy a lot of young Americans minds. One trending activity is beauty pageants. It is more common in children where the ages may vary between eight months and even older. The trending debate is whether or not beauty contest serve any purpose in society. While many Americans feel as though pageants are helpful to a child’s self esteem, many feel that the effects of the contest have a very harsh effect on child development by devaluing a child. Researchers have found that beauty contests are effective for women to help make platforms for their careers and also create new jobs for women to create like mentoring children.
“Three parents who were interviewed put their children into pageants because they have birth defects. ‘Her plastic surgeon thinks it’s wonderful because he sees parents hide their children with a facial defect,’ according to one mother, whose daughter has a cleft palate. ‘We don’t go for competition or for her to win. We go to meet other children and parents. We don’t want her to think she’s different, that she isn’t beautiful.” (Cromie). The main reason people participate in pageants is the benefit of gaining confidence. (Shappert). Parents enter their children into pageants when they are young so they can learn to be comfortable with who they are and meet many new people. (Cromie). The downside of placing a child into the pageantry world is that it can become very costly. Parents can spend hundreds up to even a thousand dollars just on the dress, this is not including the hair, nails, fake teeth and coaching, if the parent wishes to increase their chances of winning. (Cromie). Another disadvantage to putting young children or even young adults into pageants is that the thought of winning can get to their head. The competition can become too serious for them. On television shows like Toddlers and Tiaras children are often shown throwing tantrums when they do not win.