In today's social environment, child beauty pageant is one of the things that bother most. In the article "Playing at Sexy" that appeared in The New York Times, The Way We Live section, Orenstein (2010) discussed the negative effects of exposing a child to beauty pageants. However, in the scholarly journal written by Hilary Levey (2010), she goes into the detail of how helpful and beneficial child beauty pageants can be. These two articles take a different approach and view concerning child beauty pageants. But in reality, child beauty pageants can be damaging due to numerous health risks and the wide spectrum of opportunity and risk of sexualizing young girls, even to the extreme of abuse; and child beauty pageants also have psychological effects such as superiority complex and lack of interest in academics.
Child beauty pageants are considered accepted sporting events. It Is akin to athletic games where kids work to out-win their peers. In child beauty pageants, little girls are also doing everything to win in the competition and to be crowned as the most beautiful girl in the event. However, just like all other sports, there are serious concerns that should be considered and taken into account to avoid painting a picture of mistake across the board concerning this issue.
The Ugly Side of Child Beauty Pageants
At the top of the argument on the ills of child beauty pageants is the reality of who really joined the competition. In the article "Princes By Proxy: When Child Beauty Pageants Aren't About the Kids" of Alexis Blue (2012), which appeared in the University of Arizona News, Blue discussed how parents dictate or force their children to join these pageants. Even with the exception of few, parents are the one pushing and motivating their kids to join pageants to fulfill not the goals and dreams of the little girl, but to achieve the hidden desires of mothers to emerge victors of beauty pageants.
This is a distorted reality of achievement by proxy. For a little girl, their joys come from simple things. But for parents, achievements and success is measured through the paint of awards, trophies, recognitions, and cash prizes. In this distortion of the reality, the fight is between the realization of the need and desires of the parents than what girls want. This mistake in differentiating the success of kids from the achievement of parents is the root of why mothers would send and motivate their little girls to join child beauty pageants. Simply, this is a realization of mother’s needs than meeting the passion within the child.
As I have discussed above, child beauty pageants can be considered as sporting events. The problem of achievement by proxy can still be traced with sporting events. But in sporting events, most parents would look for the desire of their kids of which they will hone and train. However, in most child beauty pageants, little girls are forced to like and love beauty pageants. In the process, the passion of little girls on beauty pageants is based not on an innate desire and talent, but on the motivation of mothers for their kids to like and love beauty pageants.
Blue (2012) talked about how parents would deny their little girls naps and breaks for training and schedules of pageant contests. As a result, tears and tantrums during these child beauty pageants are very common. The desire of parents to win in most competitions they join result to pushing little girls to the extreme. The achievement by proxy becomes real in the way parents would push their kids to the extreme, even sacrificing their little girls, just win the child beauty pageant. The rationale behind this reaction of parents is for them to gain social status, self-confidence, and of course, financial value.
Beauty pageants focus primarily on the appearance, attire, and the appeal of the contestant. In fact, talent is just a secondary component of the child beauty pageants. This means that in child beauty pageants the real focus is the way little girls should appeal before the judges or the audience. Parents would do everything for their little girls to look beautiful and appealing to judges and audience to have a sure win in the competition. This attitude leads to distortion of body image and the worst case of eating disorders.
As mentioned above, child beauty pageant is not about the self-esteem of little girls, but the self-confidence of parents. To pump their confidence through winning, parents would resort to physical improvisation of their kids. There are news reports of "mothers giving their daughters Botox to help them be successful in beauty pageants. (Reel, 2013)" The “self-esteem” desire of parents becomes their motivation to resort to such kind of distortion and physical abuse on their little. At this age, little girls should have not used beauty products that can endanger or damage their skin and body parts. However, due to the desire of parents to win, little girls are given these kinds of beauty improvement tools, even forcing little girls to take them.
It must be clearly understood that child beauty pageants are driven by the mainstream media and culture. This means that the perception of beauty is affected or shaped by the social context as pumped up by mass media. And beauty mass media report that beauty is based on the elements mentioned above (appearance and look), child beauty pageants also adhere to the mass media explanation and painting on body image.
The problem of distortion on the perception of what is beauty can be seen on how parents would force their little girls to go on crash diets to meet the scheduled beauty pageant date. In the journal "Body Image, Media and Eating Disorders", Derenne & Beresin talk about the growing overweight incidence or situation among children. But the scholarly paper also pointed us how the mass media painted the problem of obesity with disgust. As a result, people want to feel and look really thin. This is the goal of child beauty pageants also - to reshape the definition of beauty and to ensure that obesity becomes a horrible sin before the eyes of people.
Parents would normally encourage or force their little girls to quickly lose weight so they can win the competition by wearing sexy swimsuit wear. Because of the fact that mass media painted thin as the new expression of self-confidence, parents would put their kids on crash diets so they will gain self-confidence and enthusiasm to show off their tiny bodies before the audience and the judges. Of course, when kids win, for parents the effort is all worth it all. And they would still use the same approach in the new future to ensure winning in the beauty pageant they will join.
The problem of eating disorder and body-image distortion goes deeper with the problem of physical-feature distortion. There are both short-term and long-term unhealthy side-effects of these activities. For instance, using of surgical-dermatological medicines to keep a good appearance among young little girls can damage their skin or can create cancer and other related diseases.
In an article that was published in CNN, Melissa Henson (2011) reported on how the television show "Toddlers and Tiaras" is sexualizing even 3-year old little girls. There is footage of a 3-year old girl who dressed up as a prostitute to play the role of Julia Roberts in the film "Pretty Woman". The little wore a thigh-high PVC boots, a wig, a white tank that is paired with a tight and short skirt. This is a perfect example on how child beauty pageants are painting the worst of little kids by presenting them as object of sex, rather than keeping their innocence from these things that only adults should have known.
It is not a big wonder when we hear of the growing incidence of rape, teenage pregnancy, and sexual crimes of little kids because even the mass media is pumping the issue to its worst and extreme. By showing little girls wearing these skimpy shorts and portraying sexually-charged characters, what is being encouraged is the sexualization of these kids and the creation of the atmosphere of abuse. In this system, little girls perceived that their ultimate goal is to please men and to make them sexually active. This is degrading the status of women in the society – and men are innocent in this regard because even mothers are the one creating or encouraging this type of culture.
Sexualization of little girls through the child beauty pageant goes on to the impact of rushing little girls to adulthood. It could have been that at the age of 5 years old, little girls should play in the park or just enjoy a walk with their dog, but because they are exposed to the horrors of the child beauty pageant, they are forced to leave their childhood years and push for a more mature role of sexualization to win a competition. This means that for the sake of winning the competition, parents are willing to trade in the innocence of their little girls.
The problem of sexualization of child beauty pageant becomes a far weightier disaster when little girls are sexually abused, either physically or emotionally. In today's society of sexual exploitation, the idea is "the younger the better". This a distorted views of sex that results to the sexual abuse of little children. Although, it would be hard to ascertain, but perhaps, there are sexual of pedophile issues among these child beauty pageants. In order to win, parents may have given their little girls to judges and other key players of the event. This is an unproven fact, but if we look at the trend, this scenario may have happened in beauty pageants.
Moreover, child beauty pageants can be the place for abuse of little girls' values and perception of life. Like all other sports, child beauty pageant fosters competition (Giroux, 2009). In fact, parents would resort to using of unhealthy means to ensure that their kids can have the best look and appearance for the sure win. This means that in this culture of competition, little girls become the collateral damage. Instead of building friendship with others, little girls are exposed to the idea that they should fight against them because it is necessary to out-win them. As a result, when little girls grow up, it would be hard for them to build relationships that are focused on competition. They think that everyone else may still the show, and that it is necessary for them to protect their status.
Another case of problem is the misconception of the concept of love and acceptance. Because parents would force their little girls to join child beauty pageants and they are expected to win, they will be thinking that the only way for them to be accepted by their parents is to win the contest. This is a wrong perception of what is love and when little girls grow up, the same atmosphere is passed on the next generation, thereby creating a chain effect of problems that may persist and ruin lives. Even, the desire to be accepted and love through winning can motivate little girls to resort in to bad practices that they may retain until their full age.
Psychologically, as mentioned above, child beauty pageants can affect the self-esteem of little girls. Because these little girls are exposed to the world where appearance and look are supreme expressions of beauty, they may lose that self-esteem when they don’t look beautiful anymore. The problem is alarming because when little girls lose the confidence they once have, they may resort to tendencies of leaving what they wanted and succumbing to bad habits.
In fact, when little girls become exposed to child beauty pageants, they think that success is more relative to prestige in the stage. This perception would alienate the desire to learn and focus on academics. Parents also play a major role in this process. Because parents would take their kids away from school to focus on trainings for child beauty pageants, little girls get a signal that their education is off less importance compared to winning in beauty contests. The love of parents become more superficial and invaluable to their kids.
The Pretty Side
On the other side of the coin, supporters of child beauty pageants believe that the benefits of this sporting event outweigh its disadvantages. The advantages of child beauty pageants can be summarized as: recognition, personal development, communication skills, confidence, and handling stress, pressure and disappointment (Michelle, 2006). First, when little girls join the contest, they are given more attention and they are appreciated. This means that their value is being recognized and acknowledged. This speaks of how the audience recognizes and appreciate their efforts in working hard for winning of the contest. Some forms of recognitions include winning modeling contracts, scholarships, community service, and other amenities.
Second, child beauty pageants make little girls more aware of their own strengths, weaknesses, values and personality. This understanding one's self is more important than another impact of child beauty pageants. They are provided the best training they can have so they will be able to accept who they really are and what they can do. Third, as a result of a better understanding of the person's inner self, they also grow their communication skills. They can now communicate what they feel and what they think better. With the meaningful impact of child beauty pageants, little girls develop both verbal and non-verbal communication skills, which are important in this sporting event.
Fourth, perhaps the most important part of child beauty pageants is boosting the confidence of little girls. They develop confidence to speak their mind and to show to the world who they really are without fear that people may not understand them. With the help of this confidence, little girls can easily succeed in any sphere or aspect of life. Lastly, little girls are more-versed on how to handle stress and pressure. In child beauty pageants are trained on how to discipline themselves to become the best they can be. There are times that they are forced to go on crash diets and they have to discipline themselves. As a result, little girls become more ready to face the pressure of the real world, than being pampered and left to become innocent victims of the world’s fast paced direction.
In essence, child beauty pageants also have their benefits on the lives of little girls. However, if we look closely, these benefits are just part of the surface. If we go deeper and evaluate the situation, we will find that the sexualization of little girls becomes the primary concern. It is impossible to ignore the reality that while child beauty pageants help to increase the confidence of little girls, they are also become victims of that confidence. They are unaware victims of the society that takes advantage of the weaknesses of the person.
References:
Blue, A. (2012). "Princess by Proxy: When Child Beauty Pageants Aren't About the Kids." Journal of the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Derenee, J. & Beresin, E. (2006). "Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders." Academic Psychiatry
2006;30:257-261.MEDIA
Giroux, H. A. (2009, May 11). Child beauty pageants: A scene from the “other America.” Truthout.
Retrieved from http://archive.truthout.org/051109A
Michelle, H. (2006). "What to Expect from a Children's Beauty Pageant." Yahoo News. Retrieved from
Orenstein, P. (2010). "Playing at Sexy." The New York Times. Retrieved from
Reel, J. (2013). Eating Disorders: An Encyclopedia of Causes, Treatment, and Prevention. ABC-CLIO..