grandma was a suffragette

"And they royalty rate all the girls like you, and they sell it out to the girls like you, to incorporate little girls." - Hole, 'Awful', Celebrity Skin

Last night, I went on an anti-beauty pageant protest outside the venue that was hosting this year's Miss Brighton. I stood in the baking heat behind a banner that read We are not beautiful, we are not ugly, and we will not be judged, and enjoyed some sisterly solidarity with the fabulous women from Sussex University Women's Group (a big shout-out goes to Sophie who masterminded the whole thing). We chanted, we handed out leaflets to passers-by, we posed for photos, and we debated with the odd sexist asshole who honestly couldn't understand why objectifying women is a bad thing.

I think the most interesting part of the whole evening was the dialogue we had with the contestants themselves. Last year's Miss Brighton actually got involved with beauty pageants when she was writing her dissertation on them from a feminist angle, but the more she explored, the more she found something that she felt empowered her. Another woman, who was standing outside, ushering the wannabe Miss Brightons into the building - and only at a beauty pageant would she have been doing this whilst wearing a stunning blue ballgown - actively engaged in conversation with us, telling us that she supported our stance and not to be put off by our handful of critics. I overheard more than one entrant commenting that it made the whole event a bit more exciting. These women have brains as well as bodies, and I find it so frustrating that they're exerting so much time, energy and money on a contest that doesn't care.

The whole event was a cattle market. It places explicit value on women only for how they look - or how they engineer themselves to look. It was a steady stream of skinny, tanned women in a ballgown and an inch of make-up, hair straightened and any semblance of individuality erased. All the women I saw were white, and all of them conformed to a very exacting standard of beauty that I find so limiting. I didn't recognise myself in any of these women. We were told that they were role models, but none of my role models parade around in bikinis purely for the visual appreciation of others. Except possibly Wonder Women, but she does it while fighting crime, which is slightly more acceptable to my feminist sympathies.

The winner of Miss Brighton will go onto the final round to compete for the title of Miss England, who will then enter the Miss World contest. I don't want my country or my gender to be represented by lipstick and a tiara. If we're having a contest that promotes the image of women, why can't we have one for the best mathmatician between 17 and 24, or the best poet or the most committed charity worker instead? Why do we feel the need to promote competition between women, when all our mainstream media is telling us that we should be rivals anyway?

Beauty isn't about who's thinnest or blondest or bulges out of a bra in the most appealing fashion. I stood outside the Grand Hotel yesterday, red and sweating in the very un-British heat, all unshaven armpits and unwashed hair. I stood and made my voice heard with a group of women who didn't care if they fitted into a strict, patriarchal standard of beauty. And I felt gorgeous.

posted by Kaite @ 9:48 AM