Miss America Organization
Featured in the Wall Street Journal
In light of the recent controversy that played out in the media this week, we would like to share this article with you published by the Wall Street Journal, which clearly promotes the Miss America tradition and core values that continues to shine above all others.
This article reflects that the Miss America Organization remains committed to providing opportunities for young women to pursue their educational dreams while maintaining their outstanding character.
Click here to view the article on the WSJ website, or read the text article below:
Pretty on the Inside? By: Bari Weiss, WSJ
In Riyadh this week, 200 young Muslim women began a 10-week quest to be crowned Saudi Arabia's official beauty queen. To most Americans, "Miss Beautiful Morals," as the contest is called, wouldn't even qualify as a beauty pageant: Gone is the bikini competition -- these beauties will wear black abayas. They will compete instead to show their "commitment to Islamic morals," like respect for their parents. Pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak was happy to distinguish her contest from similar events in the West: "It's an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman's body and looks," she told the Associated Press.
It's true that most viewers of the Miss America and Miss USA pageants are not judging contestants by the content of their character, to borrow a phrase. But is Ms. al-Mubarak right to say that our contests are "only" about looks?
Witness the past weeks' scandal over Carrie Prejean. Ms. Prejean, who was crowned Miss California 2009, competed in the Miss USA pageant in April. When asked by one of the judges whether gay marriage should be legalized, she replied that she thought marriage ought to be "between a man and a woman." No sooner had James Dobson embraced the "courageous" Ms. Prejean than partially nude photos of her surfaced on the Web. Officials threatened to take away her Miss California crown, but Donald Trump, the pageant's owner, came to her defense. All of which is a reminder that, even in American beauty contests, more than beauty counts.
In the beginning, American pageants were just about looks. Miss United States, a precursor to Miss America, took place in 1880 at Rehoboth Beach, with Thomas Edison as one of the judges. The organizers insisted that women stand at least 5 feet 4 inches and weigh no more than 130 pounds. They also had to be unmarried (a rule that persists today). The publicity that contestants received helped them start careers in modeling, vaudeville or Hollywood. But World War II transformed the nature of the pageant. Miss America 1943, Jean Bartel, used her position to rally the country in support of the war. She sold more Series E war bonds than any other American.
In 1945, Miss America began awarding the winner scholarship money for college. In 1951, the contest further solidified its interest in character -- and lost some fans -- when Miss America Yolande Betbeze declared that she was "not a pinup" and refused to pose in a swimsuit. Though the pageant supported her choice, Catalina, the bathing-suit brand, promptly dropped its sponsorship of Miss America and founded the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants.
Today, while the latter two have remained largely superficial events, Miss America expects its contestants to be "role models" and women of "outstanding character," says Art McMaster, the pageant's chief executive and president. He is quick to note that, unlike other pageants, Miss America is a scholarship program, not a beauty contest. Last year, the pageant helped tens of thousands of contestants at various levels of competition earn $48 million in order to defray the cost of college or pay off educational loans. Mr. McMaster describes the contestants as "wholesome, all-American kids next-door," with a "good moral standard."
But if the contest is all about character and scholarship, then why the bikinis? Mr. McMaster says that the swimsuit part of the pageant is a "tradition" and tells me that they've "minimized the scoring of it." How a contestant looks in a swimsuit now "only counts for 15%."
And maybe he's not just making excuses. Sure, many feminists have long argued that beauty pageants are just a step above cattle auctions. But beauty queens do what lots of women have always done -- use their looks to help get what they want. Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Palin and Diane Sawyer are all former pageant girls. Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist freed earlier this week in Tehran, was once Miss North Dakota. Miss America 2005, Deidre Downs, says that she started in the pageants to pay for college. During a short break from her surgery rotation at the University of Alabama medical school, she tells me that she expects her Miss America winnings to pay for her to become a doctor too.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam, an Iranian-Canadian human-rights activist, decided to try a pageant when she noticed "that people were listening more to sports stars and celebrities than they were to politicians. I thought, well how do I get a title for myself?" The former Miss Canada and Miss World first runner-up has used her fame to advocate for causes like ending child executions in Iran.
"If you have proportional dimensions to your physique and you can do something good with it," Ms. Afshin-Jam says, "I don't see what's wrong with that." Would that women could have the same choice in Riyadh.
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