Beauty contests were meant to select faces who can serve society and emerge role models but people from this industry only expect women to look a certain way. Ankita Jain reports
“When I was a school girl, I wanted to be a doctor but the physics and chemistry didn't dilute with me much then, I wanted to be a lawyer but even this didn’t click me. I was among those teenagers who are pretty confused about where to head in life”, said Shefali Sood winner of Miss Indian Diva 2016, a beauty pageant which hosted its second season in the capital recently.
Shefali is not the only one, there are many in the queue who win such contest on regional and national level which one may not be surprised to see it take place every other day. These are the shows which revolve around the thought of judging a person's beauty based on obvious parameters like clothes, sharpness of nose, thickness of lips and the ability to come up with faux answers like “I want to be the next Mother Teresa and serve the entire world.” The desire to become the next Mother Teresa isn’t what’s absurd here; it’s the built up scenario that forms an uninviting backdrop - a competition that ranks people based on their appearance and how much self control they show when a cheese platter is set before them. The presenter is more often than not a tuxedo-clad man who asks question offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging that begets answer of the same kind.
Sure, these contests have talent rounds and personal interviews to continually repeat the fact that they promote ‘all-round development’ of all those women who participate, but in reality it seems like all they learn is how to be change their skin tone into white, how to sashay and parade around in skimpy bikinis and also go on crash diets to stay stick-thin to win.
Recalling how many plus-sized beauty contest winners actually existIJ For that matter, plus-sized participants evenIJ Well, such questions thrust us to believe that these contests are just another way to objectify women and hand out prize money depending on how symmetrical their faces are. And in many cases, they even charge you to participate. Moreover, it has been a successful mantra for earning lakhs in short span of period.
Of course, it’s a launching pad for those wanting to get into movies and modeling platform, but what does it do for young, impressionable women who are on the precipice of achieving something and are looking for role modelsIJ Aren’t these winners supposed to be the face to serve the societyIJ Rather these people only expects women to achieve looking a certain way and puts pressure on their bodies to have a certain shape - it encourages unhealthy notions of attractiveness and also body shames.
The contest of this kind only revolves around beauty. Beauty isn’t a personal thing here. It doesn't belong to you; it, in fact, belongs to advertisers, fashion houses, diet-food manufacturers, pharma companies, cosmetic companies, fitness industry who all come together to make the confident woman second-guess herself. It's a patriarchal industry that pageants help thrive. The ones that win pageants go on to become movie stars, models and, in turn, help endorse products and ideas that susceptible, adolescent women pick up - that women and their bodies are mere commodities.
It’s now more than ever that we need feminism to help us understand that beauty pageants are superficial, over rated have undertones of racial bases and do have an impact on self-image. Aspiring to be a runway model, even Shefali accepted that, career in this field has a very short life and to overcome this one should plan for a backup plan, “I am planning to pursue masters in business administration so that when I will have nothing in my kitty at least my degrees would help to survive and live independently to achieve further in life.”it