I thought about not
watching the Miss Universe pageant because I knew there would hardly be any
black female contestants in the final lineup.
I knew the final contestants would be Latinas and they would throw a few
other ethnicities in the mix just to say the contest was fair and just. To be fair, Miss Nigeria was voted Miss
Congeniality, I guess, if that counts? I
would’ve even settled for an Asian woman in the final line up just to prove
this was truly about representing the beauty of all ethnicities. But once again, the European standard of
beauty prevails and Miss Colombia was crowned Miss Universe 2015.
I love my Latina
sisters and I think they are blessed with beautiful looks and beautiful
hourglass figures. However, let’s not
forget about our beautiful African sisters with dark, mocha or caramel skin,
beautiful curly hair and full lips. Or
our beautiful Asian sisters with their beautiful long, luscious locks of hair
and ivory porcelain skin. And who can
forget our beautiful naturally red-haired sisters who probably have to dye
their hair just to make it on stage. If we’re
going to judge on beauty, let’s make sure we have an all-inclusive view on
beauty from many different perspectives.
Let’s move on to
the size of the contestants. As most of
us who have seen beauty pageants know by now, the girls are usually a size 0-2
as this seems to be the standard.
Interestingly enough, women from many of the other countries do not adhere
to this standard because their body frames were not made to be thin sized
women. It’s the opposite in other
countries where the more weight (healthy of course) the woman has on her body,
the more beautiful. According to the
book, “Survival of the Prettiest” by Nancy
Etcoff, there are some African countries where girls are encouraged to gain
weight in preparation for child bearing.
These women come from very poor countries where they don’t know where
their next meal will come from one day to the next one. Now, as a newly certified fitness coach, I’m
certainly not advocating obesity or being overweight but that these women have
a different level of healthiness based on their size and we should learn to
respect those differences.
What about a woman’s
hair? Well, as you can tell from past
year’s contestants, the hair is usually long and straight with a few spiral
curls as an added bonus. Virtually, no
contestants go “au-naturale”. In fact, I
can only guess most of them wear extensions, lashes and other enhancements to
achieve what is believed to be the perfect Eurocentric look that wins beauty
pageants. And who can blame them, of
course? As the old saying goes, “when in
Rome, do as the Romans do!”
So why should we
care about a beauty contest? Well, first
I believe that beauty contests set the stage for beauty around the world, even
if it’s an unintended consequence. In
fact, Etcoff states in her book that, “every
woman finds herself, without her consent, entered into a beauty contest with
every other woman…no matter how irrelevant to her goals, how inappropriate to
her talents and endowments or how ridiculous the comparison.” We find ourselves buying fake hair, fake breasts
and nowadays even fake buttocks just to look like the girls on TV even when
that mold doesn’t really fit us.
And secondly, these
are the images our kids subscribe to in finding role models with which to look
up to in beauty pageants and other contests.
Maybe little Myra doesn’t look like Miss Colombia or Brazil but she is a
curly-haired, brown-skinned angel that has the cutest smile you’ve ever
seen. She sees the beauty in these ladies
on stage but could never see winning the competition because she doesn’t see
anyone who looks like her.
We live in this
world together. Our differences are what
makes us unique. If we all looked alike,
think about what a boring world this would be.
Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. As a former pageant queen and fitness model, I
know the pressure to try to conform and fit into the European standards imposed
upon us by society. Whether it’s our
hair type, skin complexion or body type, it’s tough to break that mold of what
society sees as beautiful. But that we
must. We must stand up and tell the
world that each and every woman of every ethnicity is beautiful and that every
little girl has a chance to win the crown she’s always dreamed of!
And while this
change isn’t going to happen overnight.
I believe it will come someday. I
have a dream.
Thanks for reading!
For more helpful dating tips,
please check out my blog at www.liveloveaspire.blogspot.com
or you may inquire about my life/relationship/fitness coaching services at www.liveloveaspire.com.
What’s New? We
have meet up groups for both men and women for those living in the Baltimore-DC
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