Miss America - Good Looks Out!

[vetuste_ennemi]

https://citizen.co.za/news/news-world/1945715/miss-america-pageant-bans-swimsuits-and-judging-contestants-on-appearance/

Good news for fat feminists everywhere: you can enter the contest and, rather than be judged on white patriarchal standards of beauty, be judged instead on "talent and brain".

Seems to me this is sending mixed messages to all the "thick" women out there.

[Sqad]

sp1814........you are not for turning. ( I was going to say "the lady" but decided not to ;-))

[naomi24]

sp, //just about everyone can improve their minds.//

Of course, but that isn’t the same as saying that brains aren’t ‘God given’, as you did. Brains can’t be acquired or bought. Smart people are born smart. Your comment about football players doesn’t work either. Some people are born with what are commonly known as two left feet. No Wayne Rooneys among them – no matter how hard they try.

// “It’s [beauty] more to do with genes”.//

Yes, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t work at it too. As I understand it Victoria Beckham maintains her looks and figure (neither of which I find particularly attractive incidentally) by starting the day with two spoons of some sort of vinegar, working out tirelessly, and living on a diet of fish and spinach or some such. A pretty girl naturally, but tell me she doesn’t work at it.

[Old_Geezer]

Unsure about the phrase, "God given", but worth reading the "Extraordinary People" piece in New Scientist 19 May. Feel certain I'd read another article regarding whether everyone can make the effort and learn, somewhere recently, but blowed if I can find it. Seems to be more than competant needs the inherent ability to either be good at something naturally, or at least the inherent ability to stick with something at all.

[Old_Geezer]

They don't wear swimsuits at Crufts.

[kvalidir]

I do agree with Naomi that professionally beautiful people work very hard at it indeed, and that clever use of contouring can turn miss piggy into the Mona Lisa, and starving yourself and working out 4 hours per day can be considered work, however essentially genes factor in it massively also and there is a limit the non naturally pretty can reach, once you're very put together, thin, tanned, dressed well, made up well, there is nowhere else for your big nose to hide.

[sp1814]

All semantic arguments aside - if a woman want to be judged solely on her exterior dimensions, good luck to her. There are worst things she could do.

However, I don’t think it’s a goal any young woman should be aiming for.

[sp1814]

//once you're very put together, thin, tanned, dressed well, made up well, there is nowhere else for your big nose to hide.//

Ha ha ha...brilliant.

[youngmafbog]

OK, so I have 3 daughters none of whom you wold call ugly but one of them is generally called stunning. She does not have the brains of the other two so chose to use her body (not in pageants) to her best advantage. One of the others chose to hone her brain to become a doctor.
Now, the doctor could never hope to be in the 'stunning' range and the stunner could never hope to be a doctor. So why should the brainy doctor be able to encroach on the stunners territory by lowering the boundaries - unless of course you think we should lower the boundaries of becoming a doctor too so it's fair all round?

And for the record I love them all equally and have never tried to influence any of them in their life choices. It's their life not mine even if I'm not too keen on the choice.

[ummmm]

My daughter is very pretty. Her brothers friends always comment on it. She doesn't seem to know it though.

[jim360]

I find it hard to take seriously the idea that our future life prospects are set at birth, eg that ymb's daughters were "born" to be doctors and ... what exactly was it your other daughter ended up doing, ymb?

It's also somewhat unfortunate, but I'm sure unintentional, that ymb was verging on implying that the two are in some sense mutually exclusive. What you might not have meant that, I suspect that there's still a general attitude that this is so, ie that brains and beauty for women don't tend to overlap. Less common these days, I think, but still strikes me as serious where it does exist.

[vetuste_ennemi]

People of my age may remember Reita Faria:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/indian-born-winner-of-the-miss-world-title-reita-faria-posed-in-in-picture-id489015653?s=594x594

[vetuste_ennemi]

...who, after her year of fame, completed her medical studies and became a doctor.

[dave50]

Some women are pretty, some are not. Some blokes are handsome, some are not. That's life, get over it and if some want to use their physical attributes to their advantage it's up to them, nothing to do with anyone else and if it gives us mere mortals pleasure to look at their beauty, so what? Everyone of us is happy, leave us all alone!

[Deskdiary]

^^^I completely agree.

Some of the posts on this thread have been hugely over-engineered.

[naomi24]

sp, //I find it hard to take seriously the idea that our future life prospects are set at birth//

No one has suggested that. What we do with what we have is up to us.

[andy-hughes]

If the 'Miss America Pageant' has always been based on physical attraction, and now it's not going to be based on physical attraction, the obviously it needs to be re-branded as something else that has no connection with its history.
To continue to call it something with 'Miss America' in the title, is inferring that it is something which it is not.

It's rather like asking for Spaghetti Bolognese, without the Bolognese, or indeed the Spaghetti.

[youngmafbog]

You got totally the wrong end of the stick jim.

[jim360]

I thought I had -- although, to be sure, I did try and say as much.

However, other people do think the same, so it remains a problem.

[hereIam]

I like beauty contests, not that I see many these days and as a woman, I also appreciate a pretty woman and how good she looks. If these young women want to enter beauty contests then so be it, surely it's up to them and them alone .... I think it's a shame they are going to change the premise.

[naomi24]

Sorry, my post at 13:57 should have been addressed to Jim, not SP.