The fight for beauty has now leaked into our young children and is creating countless issues that will be visible in these children and their futures. Like the old saying; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Someone or something that is considered attractive, good looking, etc. to one person may not exactly appeal the same to another. If we lived in a “perfect” world, maybe everyone would follow these wise words and admit that evaluating beauty is such a biased thing to do. Beauty pageants are becoming more and more popular since they were created back in the 1920's. Especially, children pageants. The media is a big provoker in this case with their ‘Little Miss Perfect” and “Toddlers in Tiaras” shows. In which, it’s clear the level of commitment a pageant takes and how they are not bearable for children, and I mean simply unfair for them to go through the burden of a beauty pageant.
For nearly fifty years, children have been subjected to the world of beauty pageants where they have been forced to behave in an older way rather than their actual ages. I used the word forced because I believe that no 4, 7 year old would actually chose to go through what pageant kids go through every single day. Yet, some of them may view it as a “fun” thing, but it’s mostly that they are expected to see it that way. Rather than them actually believing it’s fun. Beauty pageants just causes unrealistic beauty standards which easily influenced young girls, and they encourage judging on appearance, rather than on a person's character.
Essentially what happens is that girls as young as five are dressed up like mannequins by their pushy mothers. There’s nothing interesting, good, fun or enriching about it; it’s just weird. Although, it sure is a great e...
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...lly instills a need to fit those images and if those are not achieved, we feel a sense of guilt and worthlessness. I feel like a way we can “fix” this problem is by not talking about this at all. I mean, if we just start complimenting people on their personality and talents while completely ignoring the looks. It makes children believe that personality is much more important. Don’t you think?
Honestly, they are being set up for a life of materialistic possessions and being obsess with looks and outer appearance in general. Kids deserve to play, a kids worry should be what game to play next. Not if their makeup is spotless and their hair perfect. It’s ridiculous; they are growing up way too fast. I think childhood should be a place, where a kid, should be allowed to be a kid. The most precious moments of your life certainly not the ones you wouldn’t like to relieve.
Michelle Healy's "Could child beauty pageants be banned in the USA?"(Article A) appears in the USA Today on September 25, 2013. This article gives a response to the issue of France's proposal to ban beauty pageants. “Instead of following France’s proposal to ban child beauty pageants, researchers in the USA say safety regulations and education about how the competitions affect children are needed.” Healy uses persuasive techniques such as logos, pathos and ethos to convince people that it’s the parents’ responsibility to take responsibility on how they betray their daughters. The article also shows both sides of the disagreement therefore convincing other people even more since it shows that there are many reasons to agree or disagree with beauty pageants for children under the age of seventeen.
“ I remember thinking when she was killed I was going to get killed to as well”(Hollandsworth). Pageant girls were scared to sleep and perform because they believed pedophiles were at the competitions seeking out who to kill next. Which lead to cause girls to feel what they claim to love will be the end for them. Being a concerned writer he adds a reported statement that is distasteful, believing it would hit parents to reconsider what they have their daughters involved in. “ Parents who put their daughters in pagaent can contribute in direct and concrete ways to the precious sexualization of their daughter”(Hollandsworth). People will see it as bad parenting and consider the consequences the young ladies may face by exhibiting unchild performance, but girls are only doing as they are told will help them win. "They are always applying makeup to their girls ' faces, dressing them up, and dyeing their hair...the message these little girls take away is that natural beauty isn 't enough — that their self-esteem and sense of self-worth only comes from being the most attractive girl in the room”(Hollandsworth). Confidence levels of young girls are low so they try to cover themselves with makeup to hide who they truly are and what they look like naturally. The comfort of their skin is not wanted they want to be seen as
In 2009, TLC aired a reality television show entitled Toddlers and Tiaras. It was instantly a hit with home viewers and also brought major controversy over child beauty pageants. The show focused mainly on glitz pageants; which requires all contestant, however young, to compete with make-up, spray tans, acrylic nails and revealing costumes. Many, such as I were entertained at first with the pint size Barbie dolls; however after watching a couple episodes, controlling stage moms and toddler melt downs reveal that glitz beauty pageants are nothing less than objectification and exploitation of young girls. Beauty pageants not only exploit children but are detrimental to the child’s physical, emotional and psychological health.
She grabs the foundation and smothers her face with it; she creates a mask. She sprays the hairspray till the fumes clog the air. She squeezes into her bejeweled dress and puts on her heels. She transforms into someone who is unrecognizable, and fake. This is a little girl. The process of preparing for a beauty pageant is very demanding and stressful while little girls spend hours training and getting ready for their appearance on stage. Weeks are spent choreographing their dance routines and thousands of dollars are spent on, “glitzy” dresses, fake teeth, and spray tans. As long as beauty pageants for girls under the age of 16 continue, there will be an increase in mental and physical issues, an increase in the objectification of women, and there will be negative impacts for little girls.
Children beauty pageants encourage young girl’s to wear make-up, dress in fancy, expensive clothes, and prove to the judges they have what it takes to beat the other contestants. Jessica Bennett states in Tales of a Modern Diva “But this, my friends, is the new normal: a generation that primps and dyes and pulls and shapes, younger and with more vigor. Girls today are salon vets before they enter elementa...
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...
They also learn that being beautiful means doing whatever it takes to make yourself look perfect, even if it means that everything about you is fake. At the same time, when these little girls are dressing up for these shows, they are being put in outfits that could be worn by strippers. This draws attention to sexual offenders and pedophiles, which could potentially end up in something tragic. Claude Knights, the director of child protection charity Kidscape, says, "We do know that predators or paedophiles continually tend to justify their interest in children by saying children are sexual beings. That children are now given a channel to become little Lolitas, to be portrayed as older, to almost become mini adults – these are all trends that give legitimacy to that kind of thinking.
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...
Parents claim that pageant is alike to a sport that teaches children how to be humble winners and a good sport when they lose. It enables them to learn from their mistakes, to improve and to do better. This is a false statement because “beauty is not a talent or skill that can be enhanced with practice, determination, or stamina” (Pull the Pin). Children are learned to impress the judges and judge them based on titling as “the most beautiful girl”, “the girl with the best personality”, “supreme queen”, and many more (Tydd).
Beauty pageants affect a child’s health. On a 2003 episode of Doctor Phil McGraw’s TV talk show Dr. Phil, Dr. Phil McGraw told pageant moms that they need to explain to their children that, “a beauty pageant is a fantasy,” and if parents did not stress that fact their children “might be concerned more with their looks than their internal selves (McGraw, Sexy Too Soon.)” A child and adolescent psychologist in Maryland agreed with Dr. Phil McGraw. Not only do children competing in pageants measure their self-worth by how they look, they are in for a horrible reality as an adult if they do not stay as ‘beautiful’ when they grow up (Syd Brown, Good Morning America: Beauty Pageants Draw Children and
If you were a parent of a young girl, would you allow her to get judged based off of what she looks like? Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality for young girls all over the country. Not only do parent allow for their child to be criticized by a random person, they usually put the child under a great deal of stress because of the amount of badgering to win. All this pressure and criticism may lead to self conscious issues for these girls in the future. There have been studies performed to show the correlation between physiological issues and beauty pageants, as well as, articles written that warn the public about these effects.
Parents dress them up in costumes that are definitely too promiscuous for someone that age. A few examples from Toddlers and Tiaras are a girl dressed up as a prostitute from Pretty Women and a girl’s mother putting in fake breasts and fake butt padding for her Dolly Parton. Most costumes have cuts in the sides or in the back that reveal a lot of skin. This is teaching little kids that dressing this way is ok. They don’t feel uncomfortable in clothing like this, so they let their parents put them in it.
Many young girls are forced to wear preposterous outfits and enormous amounts of makeup that deny them of their innocence at a young age. Beauty contests are meant more for adult women who are mature enough to understand all that’s going on and can handle losing competitions to the other contestants. Children should not be able to compete in pageants because of the harmful effects on self-confidence and character. Some people think they are good and some do not agree that they are good. (Leo, 2014)
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,
They are dressed up to look like adults and sometimes dressed provocatively. “Beauty pageants are a reflection of a culture in which women are not equal. Women’s bodies are not their own but are seen as objects of beauty for others.” (Nasso). Parents of the pageant world don’t always understand how provocative and wrong it is to dress their children up in show outfits or give the child additives to make them look better.