CULTURE | LGBTQ+
Empowerment or Objectification? Beauty Pageants in Limbo Between Gender Equality and
Patriarchal Culture
WORDS BY MARICA FLORE | FLORE@PROXYBYIWI.COM | 19 FEBRUARY 2024
Beauty pageants aim to help women realise their ambitions and provide them with opportunities for fame and success. Nonetheless, their
commitment to gender equality appears inconsistent on several fronts. From adhering to Eurocentric beauty standards and the
objectification of women’s bodies, to the lack of inclusivity towards the LGBTQIA+ community, these competitions magnify elements of patriarchal culture.
Sheynnis Palacios’ recent coronation as Miss Universe 2023 reignites the debate surrounding beauty pageants. Are they a source of empowerment for women, or do they reinforce gender stereotypes and the patriarchal culture? Despite claiming to give women opportunities, these competitions still rely on objectification and discrimination.
Palacios is a 23-year-old model from Managua, Nicaragua. She introduced herself at the competition as an engaged mental health advocate and audiovisual producer, with the dream of running a newsroom to address mental health issues. The beauty queen comes from a low-income family, but now that she holds the international title, her background is not an obstacle, and she has the chance to achieve her goals.
1. An Empowering Site for Women
The Miss Universe Organization (MUO) states on its website that it aims to empower women to realize their ambitions and potential and build self-confidence as a catalyst for future success. The organizers speak about “a future forged by women” and say that the contest “rests on reaching gender equality around the world”:
The Miss Universe Organization (MUO) is an inclusive organization that celebrates all cultures, backgrounds and religions. We create and provide a safe space for women to share their stories and drive impact personally, professionally, and philanthropically. The women who participate in this international platform serve as inspirational leaders and role models to their communities and fans around the world.
The pageant empowered Sheynnis Palacios in two ways. First, she became the first Miss Universe from Central America in the 72 years of the pageant, and now represents her homeland and region worldwide, standing out in a male-dominated world.
Second, Palacios became an inspirational leader and role model in the current political situation in Nicaragua. After her victory, a photograph of her taking part in the 2018 demonstrations against President Daniel Ortega went viral on the social network X. Those protests lasted three months until the regime used lethal force, killing 320 people. After gaining the Miss Universe title, Palacios became a symbol of hope and defiance against the authoritarian regime in Nicaragua. It’s not a coincidence that her final outfit at the competition was a white dress and blue cape: a clear reference to the national flag banned from the country after 2018.
2. Perpetuating the Patriarchal Culture on the Stage
However, beauty pageants are contradictory in many aspects. The primary criterion of judgment in these contests is beauty. Women appear on stage in swimsuits and evening gowns, which emphasize their body shapes. The contestants are not required to be a certain weight, but are judged on their physical appearance. Jane Dipika Garret, who represented Nepal at Miss Universe 2023, is the first plus-size contestant to participate. This is a positive sign, but doesn’t erase the fact that plus-size models were not welcome in the 71 previous editions of Miss Universe.
The direct consequence of a beauty-focused judgment is that women are sexualized and objectified. Contestants are conceived as bodies to be admired by men, who ultimately feel entitled to possess them. In such a sexist system, the stage becomes set for abuse and sexual harassment, as happened at Miss Universe Indonesia 2023, where six contestants alleged, they were asked to strip to their underwear for “body checks”. The Miss Universe Organisation immediately cut ties with its Indonesian franchise, making clear that “there are no requirements such as height, weight, or body dimensions to join a Miss Universe pageant”. However, how can gender equality be achieved if the male gaze still plays a pivotal role in these kinds of competitions?
Furthermore, a Harvard University paper showed that the beauty standards promoted include being thin and tall, having long hair, light skin, big breasts, large and light-coloured eyes, a small nose, and high cheekbones. The research argues that these characteristics belong to the ideal European figure and became universal standards of beauty as a consequence of colonisation. Beauty contexts, therefore, not only reinforce stereotypical standards of beauty but also rely on the contradictory inheritance of the Western imperialistic past.
Other constraints about beauty competitions concern age and marital status. Miss Universe delegates must be between 18 and 28 years old, and for the last 71 years, candidates could never have been married or had children. The 2023 edition was the first to admit mothers and married women. This is another step towards equality, but for the last 71 editions, rules have been discriminating, inherently supporting the idea that for women, professional life couldn’t be balanced with family life. If independence and success are an option only for single women, it means that mothers and married women are relegated to the domestic sphere: a scenario that feeds the patriarchal culture rather than disrupting it.
Another problem concerns social class: to be considered for the Miss Universe contest, applicants have to pay an application fee of $1,000, which means that women with a poor family background are less likely to participate.
Lastly, beauty pageants generally lack inclusivity towards the LGBTQIA+ community. Miss Universe allowed transgender contestants from 2012, and from 2022 it has been owned by Anne Jakrajutatip, a Thai transgender woman. However, other beauty pageants still discriminate against gender non-conforming people. In Italy, for example, transgender women cannot compete in Miss Italy. In the 2023 edition, the owner Patrizia Mirigliani said that the pageant was only open to “women from birth”.
3. Concluding thoughts
To conclude, although beauty pageants supposedly try to drive women’s professional and personal success and promote gender equality, the reality is different. The judgment of the contestants’ physical appearance and the lack of inclusivity make these competitions a site where patriarchy is strengthened, instead of weakened. Women’s bodies are sexualized, motherhood is seen as an obstacle to a professional career and transgender women are not always welcomed.
To create real inspirational leaders, the participants’ skills should become the real focus of the competition. And to form role models, the competitions should welcome candidates which represent the complexity of society, not just a niche.
i. https://www.missuniverse.com/sheynnis-palacios
ii.
Miss Universe [@MissUniverse], 12th August 2023. X. Available at: https://twitter.com/MissUniverse/status/1690353636671459328
iii. Chen, Toby, Lian, Kristina, Lorenzana, Daniella, Shahzad, Naima, Wong, Reinesse. “Occidentalisation of Beauty Standards: Eurocentrism in Aria”. Across The Spectrum of Socioeconomics 1(2), pp. 1-11