Miss World

panda100

Would like to know the ladies and fellas views and thoughts on the Miss Ireland and Miss world competitions?

I ask cos in UCD, where I go to college, our students union is sponsering the Miss UCD beauty pageant along with The sun and The news of the world later this month. I am fairly digusted at this as I think beauty pageants are demeaning and basically put sexism on parade.
Others see it as a 'harmless' bit of fun??
Views ladies please?

Lockstep

I'm a dude, I'll give an answer anyway.

I've never seen a Miss World pageant to be honest, never even understood it all other than it;s a beauty pageant.

I'd imagine a difficulty would be the sheer subjectivity of beauty in each country.


BTW, love the signature.
Ah Blackadder. The boxed set was the only decent purchase of my teenage years.

panda100

kickoutthejams wrote: »

I'm a dude, I'll give an answer anyway.

I've never seen a Miss World pageant to be honest, never even understood it all other than it;s a beauty pageant.

I'd imagine a difficulty would be the sheer subjectivity of beauty in each country.
.

Ive never seen them either but I dont think you need to watch it to have an opinion. Though Its intresting to keep in mind that it is the most watched programme in the world.
Miss Ireland is undoubtly the most pictured person in Irish media,far more then the president or other prominent females in Irish society. When Rossanna Davidson won Miss world it was front page news,she was praised and we even held a civic reception to congratulate her.
Do you agree that these women deserve so much attention and get the opportunity to be ambassadors for their country just beacuse they look a certain way?

and yes I do love my sig too

Lockstep

panda100 wrote: »

Ive never seen them either but I dont think you need to watch it to have an opinion. Though Its intresting to keep in mind that it is the most watched programme in the world.
Miss Ireland is undoubtly the most pictured person in Irish media,far more then the president or other prominent females in Irish society. When Rossanna Davidson won Miss world it was front page news,she was praised and we even held a civic reception to congratulate her.
Do you agree that these women deserve so much attention and get the opportunity to be ambassadors for their country just beacuse they look a certain way?

and yes I do love my sig too

Nah I mean I know hardly anything about the whole Miss World thing.


I dunno, I've never found the kind of women who appear in beauty pageant/etc attractive. They just look to anodyne and bland for my taste,

At any rate, I dunno, I find it hard to have an opinion on these type of things.

Is the Miss World contest highly sexualised and featuring the whole ditzy bimbo with boobs the size of spacehoppers stereotype?
That I would find an issue.

Anti

Miss world etc etc - None of these are beauty pagents. They are compititions for the thickest of the thick it seems. Remember the american one from last year? Now she was Stupid, seriously stupid. Yes some of the women are beautifull, but whats with this world peace malarky ? I dunno, never seen the point of them myself.

justsomebloke

panda100 wrote: »

Do you agree that these women deserve so much attention and get the opportunity to be ambassadors for their country just beacuse they look a certain way?

It's the celebrity culture we live in. Actors, singers and sports stars are pretty much all in the same both as Miss World in all fairness. They all get to be ambassadors yet what have any of them really done to deserve this, yes some of them may do a lot of charity work but then there are a lot of people who would do more charity work and would never be considered to be an ambassaor.

Is it sexist? truthfully I don't think so as there is the same sort of shows for men they just aren't as popular. Is it demeaning, probably not for the fact that they walk around being pretty but more for the fact that a lot of them seem to be made out to be stupid

Aran61

panda100 wrote: »

Do you agree that these women deserve so much attention and get the opportunity to be ambassadors for their country just beacuse they look a certain way?

and yes I do love my sig too

Well there are all kinds of awards and competitions for people who are intelligent. There's no real reason why there shouldn't be one for beautiful women, right?

orestes

I dunno if they are sexist, like someone else said they have similar competitions for men (Mr Universe and all that crap) but I do consider them to be absolutely pointless and disgusting. Bunch of Barbie dolls spouting cliches and parading around on a stage or a bunch of muscle-bound blokes in speedos flexing, what's the bloody point of them?!

Meathlass

I think most people agree that beauty pagents are fairly low key entertainment. I would definately take offense at UCD sponsoring or promoting it though. I can't believe there is a UCD beauty pagent, I went to college in cork but don't remember anything like that happening at the time. The sad thing is that there will probably be hundreds of women out in Belfield queuing up to enter this pagent.

LadyJ

orestes wrote: »

I dunno if they are sexist, like someone else said they have similar competitions for men (Mr Universe and all that crap)

I wouldn't think Mr Universe is that similar tbh. It's more of a weight lifting competition. They don't have to answer open ended questions and all that crap do they?

Meathlass

Aran61 wrote: »

Well there are all kinds of awards and competitions for people who are intelligent. There's no real reason why there shouldn't be one for beautiful women, right?

You are either born beautiful or not. I'll never be a model as I'm nowhere near 6ft but with perserverance I can increase my intelligence. Why give an award for something that you are born with?

LadyJ

Meathlass wrote: »

Why give an award for something that you are born with?

I've never taken a singing lesson in my life yet I have won many talent shows because of my voice.

Meathlass

LadyJ wrote: »

I've never taken a singing lesson in my life yet I have won many talent shows because of my voice.

Point taken ... damn you've just ruined my whole arguement

AckwelFoley

If one is beautifel i think they can flaunt it if they will.

Ive a face like a kicked arse, yet i dont begrudge better looking ppl their assets.

cuckoo

panda100 wrote: »

I ask cos in UCD, where I go to college, our students union is sponsering the Miss UCD beauty pageant along with The sun and The news of the world later this month.

UCDSU are sponsoring a beauty pageant?!? Wasn't there a vocal 'students against sexism' group there a few years ago?

I think the whole thing is a little strange to be having in a college tbh, it's something i'd associate more with slightly tacky nightclubs, you know, 'Miss Bondi Beach', etc. Is it a Rag week thing?

I'm also picturing scenes around lake similar to the X Factor audition rounds, tears as girls are rejected at the first hurdle, and the engineering block emptying as the rumour spreads that the bathing suit round is taking place right now in the bar.

Will there be a Mr UCD?

Nightwish

I think the whole thing is tacky tbh. I wouldnt go all feminazi calling for it to be banned, nor do I find it offensive, I just think its stupid. Not that I'd ever win, but I would not see any incentive to enter a contest like "Miss Big-Tits 08" or whatever.

Blush_01

So the *cough* beauties *cough* get to compete in a Miss UCD competition this year. How different exactly is it from the Fashion Show model of the year? (The most beautiful women - and men - I saw in UCD would never enter this type of competition, but then again each to their own.)

I think this is being held because it'll get an audience. I also think that the fact the issue is being raised here by someone who auditioned for the fashion show some moons ago is amusing. Panda, I understand the fashion show and a beauty pageant are basically different things, but in essence, they're not in UCD. The whole thing will still only cater to the few professional models in the place, and nobody else will care all that much.

If they want to massage eachothers egos and then spit venom at each other behind their backs, then whatever floats their boat. It might even make some money for the SU to run some campaign or other that only the hacks will care about. And why should the interests of the hacks be catered to more than the models and more vapid members of the UCD herd?

WindSock

I never understood the competition myself. Is it a prize for the best looking person?

AckwelFoley

WindSock wrote: »

I never understood the competition myself. Is it a prize for the best looking person?

Well they "say" its personality too...

Thats why theres a swim suit section in it.

I wouldn't be worried about the UCD thing.

There was a documentary a few years back about the Miss India selection bootcamp.
They used a dexa scan to find fat on the participants, for them to work off.

Bottle_of_Smoke

I dont really have a problem with e the big ones liek miss world but I always feel sorry for girls who enter into things like miss UCD or Miss nightclub. Just feel somewhat embarrassed for them wanting to be a part of it.

The Sweeper

I have no idea why anyone would enter a beauty pageant in Ireland. You're basically lining up to have a bunch of people pass comment on how you're a boot, a minger, how they wouldn't give you one - or perhaps they would, but only with the lights off and a pile of drink taken - how you're not that great, how you have bad eyebrows/teeth/lips a huge arse/belly/feet and saggy tits/chins/whatever else is saggy, how you're probably not good enough to be the beauty pageant you're in, you're not gorgeous, and in fact you've a face like a bag of hammers and should probably spend the rest of your life with a paper bag over your fat, ugly head.

Oh oh oh - and you're stupid.

Crumble Froo

i wouldnt worry about a college one. my experience of that was people just going up for a laugh, taking the piss. though, i think they were mainly fundraisers etc.

Reku

If a female wants to be judged on her looks then so be it, it is her right. She'll be rather disappointed in the long run if that's all she gets by on since looks fade but that is a lesson for her to learn in her own time. Part of me feels that such a competition is a bit of a celebration of attentionwhoring though, since "look at me, look at me" is effectively the whole point.

Having someone as an ambassador simply because they are attractive though is rather daft and risky, some of you might remember a girl posting on PI, who said she was a former Miss Donegal or some such and the way she incensed a lot of posters, would you want someone who would irritate people like that representing you or your country to other nations? I mean looking at Hollywood, Tom Cruise was considered to be quite attractive and so ended up quite successful, I'm sure we all realise how much the church of scientology is currently regreting having him as their ambassador at the moment due to the recently leaked interview.

panda100

Cool just wanted to gauge a bit of what peoples views and thoughts were on beauty pageants.
Thanks for replying everyone

Blush:I think the fashion show is slightly differnet cos at least there are men and women involved and it also serves a purpose that the models are moddeling clothes whereas in beauty pageants womne are being directly judged on their apperance, but I agree that the fashion show doesnt create a positive atmosphere in UCD cos many young women audition and are turned away and that cannot be a nice feeling.

Also,just to answer the UCD Miss UCD beauty pageant is for a charity.However,their are alternative ways to raise money for charity, ones that dont ban mother,wives and people from under 5'4 from entering.

justsomebloke

panda100 wrote: »

their are alternative ways to raise money for charity, ones that dont ban mother,wives and people from under 5'4 from entering.

yes, but they don't cater to the fact that putting these women in bikinis is probably the easiest way to con as much money as possible from the male population of UCD. So if nothing else I would say the SU are exploiting men in the name of charity

John Mason

it is a bit of fun, i was in the final of the miss wicklow competition, many years ago. its great craic

Babette08

I think as long as people are obsessed with beauty, as the viewing figures show, then things like beauty pageants will continue.



Personally don’t see the problem…entertainment for those into that kind of thing and I’m sure they’ve opened many a previously closed door for contestants – Rosanna Davidson last I heard was being given her own show in the UK?

Walls

It's completely and utterly wrong.

Firstly, Beauty contests are a reduction of women to nothing more than objects. People are graded on the basis of nothing more than their looks.

Secondly, the holding of this contest on a third level campus, where women might at least feel they need to succeed on the basis of more than their looks, sends completely the wrong message.

Finally the fact that no one has raised any of these points before is very much a cause for worry. Is no one a feminist anymore?

Blowfish

panda100 wrote: »

Blush:I think the fashion show is slightly differnet cos at least there are men and women involved and it also serves a purpose that the models are moddeling clothes whereas in beauty pageants womne are being directly judged on their apperance, but I agree that the fashion show doesnt create a positive atmosphere in UCD cos many young women audition and are turned away and that cannot be a nice feeling.

I'm sure there are plenty of guys applying for the UCD sports teams and getting turned down. What's the difference?

Walls wrote: »

Firstly, Beauty contests are a reduction of women to nothing more than objects. People are graded on the basis of nothing more than their looks.

Why do the women voluntarily participate in them then? You have to realise some women actually want to be judged on their looks.

NoQuarter

sure in UCD and every other college people are graded solely on their intelligence so whats wrong with being judged on appearance too??

people who are against this sort of a thing have a chip on their shoulder in my opinion!

if you have no objection to mastermind etc then why have objections to miss world or whatever, people can do little about either their looks or intelligence!

if youve got the looks flaunt it, people with brains certainly flaunt that, multiple times daily on this site!

Walls

Because the idea is for young women to get away from believing that the only important thing about them is their looks. Being graded on your intelligence at least implies some merit. And folks take part in this because they are, in a way, part of the system, and have no other option other than to take part (or are not aware of any other option).

Meathlass

king-stew wrote: »

sure in UCD and every other college people are graded solely on their intelligence so whats wrong with being judged on appearance too??

people who are against this sort of a thing have a chip on their shoulder in my opinion!

if you have no objection to mastermind etc then why have objections to miss world or whatever, people can do little about either their looks or intelligence!

if youve got the looks flaunt it, people with brains certainly flaunt that, multiple times daily on this site!

It's totally different being graded on intelligence as opposed to looks! Many kids are born ugly and will never be Miss World, no one is born intelligent, they have to work at learning and education and if they put in the effort then they will get top marks or whatever. I agree with Walls, the fact that this is supported by the SU is what would piss me off the most. And no, I don't have a chip on my shoulder. There are plenty of other things they could have done to raise money for charity.

Babette08

Blowfish wrote: »

You have to realise some women actually want to be judged on their looks.[/quote

+1. I totally agree with this.

Meathlass, Miss World is not for everyone so i don't think those not too blessed in the looks department would mind too much . Also, of course people are born stupid

Meathlass

I don't think people are born stupid or intelligent, all babies have the potential to become intelligent. Otherwise why would we bother educating people. We'd just weed out the stupid kids in creches and not bother putting them in school. I'm just suprised that the student's union is sponsoring this event. Does this happen in other colleges for rag week? To me Miss World comps and the like, whether for male or female, reinforce the view that people should be judged soley on looks. I think it's a shame that this is happening in a university setting of all places where it shouldn't matter what you look like or how much money you have but how you do in your exams that's the point.

LadyJ

Meathlass wrote: »

Does this happen in other colleges for rag week? To me Miss World comps and the like, whether for male or female, reinforce the view that people should be judged soley on looks.

Tbh, I think beauty pagents are a load of crap and it's kind of sad that people would want to enter them and have people oggling them. However, I don't think it reinforces the view that people should be judged on looks in real life any more than a talent show would inforce the view that talentless people are worthless.

People with talent enter talent shows and no one bats an eyelid because it's a competition for people who have talent. No one is saying that in day to day life if you can't sing/dance/play an instrument then you aren't worth sh!t.
A beauty pagent is for people who are good-looking and people who don't make the cut (according to the judges) won't get in, just like in "You're a Star".

Walls

A beauty pagent, however, is solely and completely about looks, not about talent. There is a difference. And it is a difference that the SU supports.

the dee

I think beauty pagents in general are just stupid. I wouldn't be too bothered about them tbh.

Having a beauty pagent in a university though, is not only stupid but inappropriate and insensitive. It has no place in a place of learning. Whether it's 'for charity' or 'for a laugh' or whatever. Entirely inappropriate. That's the kind of thing I would protest if I was still in college.

Walls

Now, if they had an intelligence pageant, i.e. something similar to University Challenge, that I would feel would be worth supporting.

LadyJ

Walls wrote: »

A beauty pagent, however, is solely and completely about looks, not about talent. There is a difference. And it is a difference that the SU supports.

Talent can be just as natural as beauty though.

Cunny-Funt

People seem to forget the a lot of women LOVE this stuff, love competing in them etc. Nobody's being forced into this stuff. Although those child beauty pageants are another thing and make me ****ing sick. If anything, they are the ones that should be discussed.

LadyJ

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

People seem to forget the a lot of women LOVE this stuff, love competing in them etc. Nobody's being forced into this stuff. Although those child beauty pageants are another thing and make me ****ing sick. If anything, they are the ones that should be discussed.

I think child pagents are an other thing altogether. A culture of their own and that's the kind of thing that I don't like but for many reasons.

Adults in an adult pagent have chosen to be there and asked to be judged on their looks so fair enough.

Walls

LadyJ wrote: »

Talent can be just as natural as beauty though.

Lady J, agreed. However, the appreciation of beautiful woman is utilised by many as a tool of sexism. Talent rarely is.

LadyJ

Walls wrote: »

Lady J, agreed. However, the appreciation of beautiful woman is utilised by many as a tool of sexism. Talent rarely is.

Walls I am a feminist I assure you but I believe in the right to choose and if I were to choose to enter a competition and be judged on how I look then so be it. If that is what someone wants then fair enough.


Adults should be able to choose to do whatever they like and imo, it is the child beauty pagents that do the harm because kids are so impressionable. At 20 or so, either you're already going to be the kind of person who wants to be judged on looks or you're not.

Walls

It may be the case that a person chooses to be judged in such a fashion. It is alos the case that others can decide to support such a choice or not. it is not appropriate that a University Student Union organise and host such a pageant. By doing so it sends out a message of support and encouragement to folk who choose to be judged in such a fashion, and negates the arguements of those who oppose such a pageant.

And while I would also have views regarding Child Pageants, I'd ask that we stick to the topic of the thread.

panda100

Walls wrote: »

. Is no one a feminist anymore?

For me its not really about being a feminist or not. Its more to do with the questions of self esteem and self worth these competitions throw up.
For example. 6000 women in Ireland suffer from eating disorders compared with only 600 men.
Women suffer from depression and self esteeem issues far more than men. In the Dove self esteem survey over 90% of women want to change the way they look compared to only 20% of men.
To me there must be a fundamental reason for women being more insecure about their apperance then men. Is it because we are constantly bombarded with this ideal of how to look,one that miss world completly reinforces? Rewarding a women because she fits a certian type of beauty that society respects. tall.flawlwess skin, slim,tanned,sparkling teeth.

http://socialpsych.uconn.edu/Fredrickson_et_al_JPSP1998.pdf
Actually Id really reccomend people to read this study.
They took a group of male college students and female college students and got them to sit a maths test. Both sets did well in the test. Then they got the males to wear swimming togs and the females a bikini and got them to sit the test again. There was no differnece in the perfrmance of the men but the females performed significantly worse when in their bikinis. This shows how much more body concious us females are made to feel.

LadyJ

Walls wrote: »

It may be the case that a person chooses to be judged in such a fashion. It is alos the case that others can decide to support such a choice or not. it is not appropriate that a University Student Union organise and host such a pageant. By doing so it sends out a message of support and encouragement to folk who choose to be judged in such a fashion, and negates the arguements of those who oppose such a pageant.

Tbh, some people are proud of the way they look. People are always grateful when someone says "Oh don't you look nice!" Competitions are always about reducing a person's worth to one thing (the object of the competition be it looks or intelligence or whatever). There is a lot more to people than one aspect of themselves so all competitions are offensive in one way or another.

And while I would also have views regarding Child Pageants, I'd ask that we stick to the topic of the thread.

I was trying to convey the idea that the way people feel about their looks begins earlier than college so it's probably not going to make a difference by the time your at college age. Anyway, that's irrelevant for now.

Walls

My perspective on this one is that it is often difficult to get folk to see you as a colleague first and a woman second. The behaviour in such circumstances is subtle but persistant and very real. Seeing a University running a beauty pageant does not, in my mind, aid the process in any real sense.

Dudess

I know it's a big college and all, but aren't there pockets of UCD with a SIndo/"SoCoDu" thing going on...? Maybe it's because of the Rosanna Davison thing - she's a UCD student isn't she?

Reku

panda100 wrote: »

For me its not really about being a feminist or not. Its more to do with the questions of self esteem and self worth these competitions throw up.
For example. 6000 women in Ireland suffer from eating disorders compared with only 600 men.
Women suffer from depression and self esteeem issues far more than men. In the Dove self esteem survey over 90% of women want to change the way they look compared to only 20% of men.

Personally I find claims that women suffer from depression more than men highly questionable as male suicide rates are far higher than female. In fact worldwide the ratio seems to be roughly 3:1 as many men as women commit suicide, as such it is a reasonable assumption that far fewer men than women seek help for depression and as such any reports on a bias between the two genders in terms of the prevalence of depression are themselves flawed. Fact is you're not going to know someone is depressed until they want you to or you find the body, people want to believe injuries were accidents so it's easy to fob them off with some half-hearted attempt at a lie and most wounds are easy to hide. As any of you who are regulars of AH/PI probably know I've tried many times, do my family know, heck no!
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/index.html
One exception seems to be SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE, where female suicides outnumber males for some reason (anyone know anything about this place as I am curious why there?).

panda100 wrote: »

Then they got the males to wear swimming togs and the females a bikini and got them to sit the test again. There was no differnece in the perfrmance of the men but the females performed significantly worse when in their bikinis. This shows how much more body concious us females are made to feel.

Or just that the women couldn't stop looking around once there was flesh to oggle.:p
Seriously though from what I can see after skimming over that they only got the people to sit the test once, not twice under differing conditions, then applied their BS formula (lies, damn lies and statistics) which gave them their "adjusted math score" values. There's a reason real scientists are hesitant to consider psychology a science, and it's poor experimental skill demonstrations like this. The author even says that prior to the application of their little formula the 2 genders

showed
no differences by sex or experimental condition on problems
attempted

.

Meathlass

Meathlass wrote: »

I don't think people are born stupid or intelligent, all babies have the potential to become intelligent. Otherwise why would we bother educating people. We'd just weed out the stupid kids in creches and not bother putting them in school. I'm just suprised that the student's union is sponsoring this event. Does this happen in other colleges for rag week? To me Miss World comps and the like, whether for male or female, reinforce the view that people should be judged soley on looks. I think it's a shame that this is happening in a university setting of all places where it shouldn't matter what you look like or how much money you have but how you do in your exams that's the point.

Intelligence is more a potential for learning though, and how well/quickly you learn.
I find it quite odd you'd say don't bother educating "stupid" people...