Last Saturday, the final of the 92nd Miss America pageant saw 23-year-old Mallory Hagan from Brooklyn, New York win the coveted title of Miss America 2013.
Ms Hagan, who won a $50,000 college scholarship, plans to spend her title reign raising money for children’s charities.
However, whilst Miss America 2013 and her predecessors use their newfound fame to help the community there are people who believe that beauty pageants such as Miss America should be abolished.
In 2011 the London Feminist Network and United Kingdom Feminist Group staged a protest against beauty pageants labelling them as “degrading”.
“They make anything the women have to contribute of not very great importance compared to how big their boobs are and their waist and their shape.”
One protester even labelled beauty pageants as “the jewel in the crown of rape culture”.
Listening to the protestors, the Miss America pageant has adapted, decreasing the importance of the swimsuit score; banning professional hairdressers and makeup artists from the pageant; stopping the announcement of each contestants’ breast, waist and hip measurements; requiring that contestants choose a social issue for their ‘personal platform’ and abolishing the requirement that contestants wear high heels during the swimsuit segment.
But protestors remain unsatisfied, maintaining that pageants pressure young women to look a certain way leading to eating disorders and body dysmorphia.
Yet, the Miss America pageant has received some praise, mainly for raising important social issues and creating role models for young children. Just this year the pageant included contestants such as Miss District of Columbia who plans to undergo a preventive double mastectomy to reduce her risk of breast cancer, Miss Montana who was the pageant’s first autistic contestant and Miss Iowa who has Tourette’s syndrome.
Public opinion on the pageant may be divided but as long as the contestants are happy and use their title to help others then I see no reason why the pageant should change or be cancelled.
