intro
The United States Congress should enact a bill that mirrors France’s Equality Between Women and Men Act (No.1348) regarding the prohibition of participating in beauty pageants for children under the age of thirteen.
origins
In 1854, Phineas T. Barnum held the first modern beauty pageant in America when he would parade the women in his circus and other national contests to promote his museum in New York (Lieberman 742). He then continued by presenting the contestant’s photos in his museum and having the public vote (“It’s Not a Beauty Pageant”). The most popular photo beauty contest was the one held by promoters of the St. Louis Exposition in 1905. The promoters of this event contacted newspapers across the country to select a young representative from each city to compete for the beauty title at the St. Louis Exposition. This contest received about forty thousand photo entries (“People & Events”). In 1880 during a summer festival in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a “bathing beauty pageant” took place in order to keep visitors around in the area longer. Then the “Atlantic City’s Inter-City Beauty Contest” in 1921 was the first beauty pageant to introduce the title of Miss America, who was first won by Margaret Gorman, a junior at Western High School (It’s Not a Beauty Pageant”). Child beauty pageants were not popularized until 1961 when Palisades Park in New Jersey held Little Miss America pageants every week.
context
Participation of children under the age of thirteen in beauty pageants can produce multiple destructive outcomes. These include altering the way a participant views themselves, the sexualization and objectification of the child, and the exploitation of the minor to be considered child abuse. A child beauty pageant is an event with the purpose of rewarding children based on their appearance and personality (Levey). The University of California Davis Medical Center defines self-esteem as “how we value ourselves . . . how valuable we think we are to others.” Merriam Webster defines sexualization as “to make sexual, endow with a sexual character or quality” and the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act defines child abuse as “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in . . . serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation . . . ” The murder of JonBenet Ramsey, a six-year-old girl who participated in child beauty pageants, on December 26, 1996 brought about the negative effects of beauty pageants to the public. This cruel slaughter of a young girl was broadcasted across America and everyone saw JonBenet “dressed up like a 25-year-old, moving suggestively across the stage, . . .” (Giroux). A widespread of individuals saw child beauty pageants as being disturbing and wrong for children to partake in this event. Most recently, the photos of ten-year-old Thylane Loubry Blondeau wearing an excessive amount of makeup as well as “adult” clothing such as provocative dresses and stilettos in the French Vogue fashion magazine brought the attention of the sexualization of children (Vuoto).
This issue mostly affects the adolescents partaking in the child beauty pageants. Child participants are affected by altering their perception on the way they view themselves (Lieberman 741). This can lead to eating disorders as well as body image issues. They are also affected by being victims in a form of child abuse (Giroux). Child participators are affected by beauty pageants because it leads to obstructing the partaker from being a child by sexualizing them at an early age.
Under Article 17 of France’s Equality Between Women and Men Act, prohibits the pageant organization for children the age of thirteen. This violation is punishable by two years confinement and a €30,000 fine. People who also promote, encourage, or tolerate children to join beauty pageants are equivalently punishable. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act directs child security and sets minimum principles for States that agree to undertake the CAPTA funding, but each State has its own set of descriptions of child abuse. According to Occupytheory, around 5,000 child beauty pageants are held each year with 250,000 children who participate. Over the past eighty years, Miss America pageants contestants have a 12% drop in weight with a 2% increase of height (Thompson). Parents take on a big part of children participating in beauty pageants. Some parents will put their child though pageants because they believed these events are valuable because they themselves competed (Cromie). Other times, parents will have their child participate frequently because of the rewards the child obtains for winning (Levey). In Lindsay Lieberman’s Protecting Pageant Princesses, child beauty pageants “focus on ideals of perfection and beauty,” and contestants “encounter a tremendous amount of premature stress.” According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, parents must respect children as human persons and as a gift rather than property owned by them. In Familiaris Consortio, families must help develop personal dignity and respect the rights of children.
People should be concerned about this issue because child beauty pageants lead to negative outcomes such as the sexualization and exploitation of the child’s innocence as well as child abuse. Many people believe that undergoing child beauty pageants as entertainment is wrong and disturbing (Giroux).
People should be concerned about this issue because child beauty pageants lead to negative outcomes such as the sexualization and exploitation of the child’s innocence as well as child abuse. Many people believe that undergoing child beauty pageants as entertainment is wrong and disturbing (Giroux).