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...
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