Right. Now, call me crazy but I thought that the whole point of the Women's Rights movement was to give women the right to make their own choices. No longer would they have to have patriarchal notions of 'good womanly behaviour' (i.e. to put it in a highly reductive manner: be obedient, keep your education to a minimum, marry who I tell you, then have lots of babies and become a house wife) shoved down their throats by an outside influence. We now have the right to behave autonomously and do whatever we like, as long as it's within the confines of the law.
In short, when it comes to women's rights I believe that all women have the right to make whatever legal choices they wish free from undue external pressures, in awareness of the consequences of their actions and without the fear of being ostracised by their community. Which is why I find the University of Birmingham Women's Association's choice to create a campaign against Touch Tuesdays' Miss Undergraduate 2012 pageant so bizarre.
Now this isn't a dig at the Women's Association, they're a lovely bunch of people who do a lot of good work, it's more an expression of my confusion at this extreme intolerance of beauty pageants shared by rather a lot of Women's Rights groups. What is it about a group of adults, in this case intelligent enough to gain a place at university, choosing to be judged on their looks that causes such a vitriolic backlash?
I've never entered a beauty pageant. To me being forced to appear in one would constitute my idea of one of the innermost circles of hell. But I've seen them on tv and instead of seeing a group of oppressed, misled individuals I've seen driven women who've decided that this is the field they want to succeed in. It's a different lifestyle choice, not one that I'd subscribe to personally but I respect just that, that it's their choice.
Does it represent an unhealthy focus on looks over personality and a restrictive view on what beauty is? Probably, but all competitions, whether judging an individual based on appearance, intelligence, success, physical strength or knowledge of a chosen field represent restrictive notions of what makes a person a success. Some women choose to be judged on clothing, hair and makeup (and in the case of Miss Undergraduate how much money they’ve helped raised for cancer research/how many guests they can bring along) and some choose to compete in other fields from chess to kickboxing. Plenty of women who take part in beauty contests do not confine themselves just to one field but are highly successful in other areas to. Assuming that by choosing to take part in a beauty contest a woman is either a victim of severe body confidence issues/a villain perpetuating these issues in the wider community is pretty unfair. I don’t feel any less confident in myself as a woman because I’d probably have very little success in a beauty contest than I do because I'm unlikely to win any athletics awards any time soon and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Certainly, there is still a need to elevate the standing of female role models who are successful because of their skill and/or success in other fields, but this battle won't be won by demonising women who choose to take part in beauty pageants.
Almost all the women I know genuinely would like to hear more about female role models and all of us probably know a couple women who could be classed as such. So how about this: instead of spending time, money and energy just fighting beauty pageants why not organise your own alternative pageants? Instead of swim suit contests discuss the impact contestants have had on their communities, instead of evening wear, entrepreneurship and, if you don't want to, you don't even have to select a winner at the end, just celebrate everyone as equals.
Now you might say 'no one would come to such an event' but why not think creative, team the event with other fundraisers, debates, dinners and while you're at it, maybe think about presenting an alternative to male beauty pageants too. Let's be honest, competitions such as 'Mr Universe' present at least as a, if not more, damaging body image to men (and just plain damaging to the eye of any unwitting viewer) about what it is to be a beautiful man than Miss Universe and Miss Undergraduate present to women.
And for those who'd inevitably say recognising the amazing work of a few successful ladies would just 'promote another unattainable standard that negatively affects the way 'real' [whatever that means] women perceive themselves' well, I guess I can't please everyone.
Finally going back to the event that started this train of thought, the protest against Touch Tuesdays' Miss Undergraduate 2012 competition (which I should point out is being run in association with Cancer Research, a highly un-misogynistic charity), it's worth noting that I'd never heard of Touch Tuesdays, the venue it's held in, Touch-x tv or the Miss Undergraduate 2012 competition before the Women's Association announced its intention to protest against it. From what I can discern from obsessively googling the event, noting the minimal views their youtube channel has received and the few 'likes' the night has gained on facebook, it's really not a big deal. By deciding to protest against it they have in fact, unwittingly, just raised awareness of the event and help publicised the pageant to exactly the target audience they are trying to reach: undergraduates. Now the event has even been commented on in national news http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-16703135 this protest is probably the best thing that could have happened to the organisers.
Btw to any members of the Women's Association who might be reading this, definitely don't take this personally, it's just that, in my opinion, instead of just shouting about, and drawing attention to, what you don't like, women's rights groups should also focus on drawing attention to what they want to see and do their best to make it happen.
H.B.
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