Children's Beauty Pageants: A phenomenon in need of greater regulation

Given the tabloid attention given to children's beauty pageants, the question of whether children should be allowed to participate in these venues has been given increased scrutiny. Proponents of pageants state that they boost participants' self-esteem or at worst do no harm. However, it is the contention of this essay that far from being harmless talent competitions, the pageants raise real questions about children's consent and also raise troubling concerns about the use of children as spectacles of entertainment. They should be subject to increased regulation if not an outright ban.

Children's beauty pageants have been controversial since their inception in the 1960s. Children's pageants have been around almost as long as their adult incarnations. The industry is virtually unregulated (unlike, for example, children who act in sitcoms or movies, who are subject to child labor laws). "According to the Attorney General of the Department of Justice in California, 'there is no law that prescribes how a pageant must be managed, the rules are set by each contest promoter'" (Nussbaum, "Children").

The controversy

Opposition to children's beauty pageants comes from a wide variety of sources. First and foremost, many feminists are outraged at a spectacle which features little girls being judged for their looks, versus talent and internal qualities like sportsmanship and intelligence. Many competitions feature very young and impressionable children as small as two, although age ranges encompass girls as old as middle school age. "The competition is usually composed of different categories namely talent, casual wear, long gown or evening wear, sportswear and question and answer portion. Child contestants can wear makeup, showcase different hairstyles, and wear fitted outfits" ("Child Beauty Pageant Statistics," 2014). The emphasis on dressing up and makeup can create a highly sexualized image of the child which many find objectionable. Also, this can send a message to young girls that appearance vs. internal qualities are more important. According to Karen Kataline, "a mental health professional near Denver who participated in child pageants in the 1960s," while "I'm not against children singing and dancing on stage, but you want them to sing and dance and perform in age-appropriate ways…Today, we've pushed the envelope to ridiculous degrees" (Healey, "Could Child beauty pageants").

There are reports of children being denied the ability to sleep to preserve their hairdos and forced to wear artificial teeth to conceal the fact that they have lost theirs, underlining how age appropriate behavior is not encouraged in the context of the pageants. Kataline herself is the author of a book entitled Fatlash!: Food Police and the Fear of Thin -- A Cautionary Tale, describing the eating disorder she developed after being forced to participate in pageants as a young girl. Involuntary sexualization at a young age can have a lasting impact on young girls, causing them either to believe their only worth is their sexuality or causing them to view sexual development, when it does occur with maturity, as something they must hide from.

(Renold & Ringrose 389).

Current position

Even though they seem like harmless fun, child beauty pageants exploit children for adult's ego and entertainment.

Three reasons

First and foremost, child beauty pageants require children to perform in a manner which is not healthy to their development, long before they have the ability to consent to do so. Children who participate in these pageants often have to endure painful beauty rituals with a questionable effect upon their health (being given soda to stay up late, grueling dance practices, tanning) (Cartwright, "Child beauty pageants"). Unlike adults, they are not old enough to make a reasoned decision to weigh the risks and benefits of prioritizing pageants over other aspects of their life like socializing with friends, sports, or school. And unlike other forms of entertainment like acting or even school sports, pageants are largely unregulated and there are no limits such as hours of work or practice which relegate the activity to an appropriate sector of a child's life.

Secondly, the pageants over-sexualize children. Little girls are not even judged upon their girlish cuteness but the extent to which they are encourage to mimic adult mannerisms in a way that is often unnatural. This sends a bad message to the rest of society about how little girls perceive themselves as well as to the girls. Pageants are already scandal-plagued thanks to the legacy of the killing of Jon Benet Ramsey and the reality show Toddlers and Tiaras: continuing to foist this sort of childhood upon another generation is questionable at best ("Top ten beauty pageant...

"Men are visually aroused by women's bodies and less sensitive to their arousal by women's personalities because they are trained early into that response, while women are less visually aroused and more emotionally aroused because that is their training" (Wolf 152).
My interests

My interest in this is because of my belief that the media has too much of an influence upon how young girls perceive their self-worth. While it is easy to shrug and say these pageants are confined to a small segment of the population, the hyper-sexualization of young girls is a very real phenomenon.

Why the topic is important

The American Psychological Association expressed concerns in its recent "Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls" about the hyper-sexualization of young girls, decrying how "in the world of child beauty pageants, 5-year-old girls wear fake teeth, hair extensions, and makeup and are encouraged to 'flirt' onstage by batting their long, false eyelashes" before they are conscious of what this means. According to Cook & Kaiser (2004), the very notion of the 'tween' highlights how puberty is being increasingly pushed back earlier and earlier in a girl's development. A study of girls as young as six found that when given a choice they vastly preferred a sexualized doll over a non-sexualized doll (Starr & Ferguson 463).

What to find out first

More research needs to be conducted to determine the potential long-term negative effects of being sexualized upon young girls. As noted by Eagan & Hawkes (2008), sexualization is a social process, not a biological one, and the impact of such early sexualization must be better understood not only in terms of its impact in a pageant-specific context put also given the extent to which the sexuality embodied in the pageants exemplifies a larger problem in the culture. Pageant culture seems to embody the Lolita complex of the sexualized young girl, as noted in Merskin (2004) and what is even more troubling is that authority figures that should be the protectors of young girls are embodying that culture.

Possible action

Beauty pageants in general have been characterized as harmful to women. But while the cultural relevance of Miss America and Miss World has been declining, the fascination with children's beauty pageants has not abated. This has caused many to demand an outright ban upon them, given the children's lack of consent in being exploited as well as the concerns about over-sexualization and the demands placed upon the children in an unregulated environment that does not take into consideration their health, safety, and welfare. There has already been a call to ban pageants featuring children in France and many have called for this to become a precedent in the U.S. (Wallace 1). At minimum, standards are needed regarding the types of practices that can be performed on children in the name of beauty, such as keeping them up for long hours during the day at the expense of sleep and schooling, tanning, and forcing them to wear uncomfortable clothing such as high heels. Just as children are rigorously protected in other entertainment industries, they should also be protected in the world of pageants.

Closing

The law must step in to protect the weakest and most vulnerable members of a society, including its children. Children involved in beauty pageants do not have the agency or voice to articulate their own needs. Although parents have a right in most instances to determine what is best for their children, our society also places limits on children in regards to work and schooling to ensure they are treated in an age-appropriate manner. Placing restrictions on pageants, including the types of entertainment children may be involved in through these venues, seems necessary given recent abuses.

Works Cited

"Are Beauty Pageants harmful to women?' Debate.org. Web. 22 Apr 2015.

Cartwright, Martina. "Child Beauty Pageants: What Are We Teaching Our Girls?" Psychology

Today. 12 Aug 2011. Web. 22 Apr 2015.

"Child Beauty Pageant Statistics." Occupy Theory. 20 Dec 2014. Web. 22 Apr 2015.

Cook, Daniel Thomas & Kaiser, Susan. "Betwixt and be Tween: Age Ambiguity and the Sexualization of the Female Consuming Subject." Journal of Consumer Culture, 4 (2004) 2: 203-227

Egan, R.D. & Hawkes, Gail. "Endangered Girls and Incendiary Objects: Unpacking the Discourse on Sexualization." Sexuality & Culture, 12 (2008) 4: 291-311.

Healey, Michelle. "Could child…