The Miss America Pageant was a few weeks ago, and as I happily gathered with my pageant friends around the TV to watch it, I never considered people might have anything beyond the utmost admiration for these women brave enough, poised enough, dedicated enough to represent their state in front of the entire nation.
And then the next morning I saw the posts. Bitter person after bitter person commenting on how pageantry is an insult to professional women, how no man should ever want a girl so vapid, etc. etc. etc. The lack of knowledge about pageantry is so painful in these comments.
Yes, there’s a swimsuit competition. Yes, the Miss America Organization has its origins in a beauty pageant. But now, the pageant system stands for so much more than that.
I challenge anyone turning up their noses at the pageants to try one. They wouldn’t even make it past the paperwork. To even enter a local is an exercise in perfectionism. You need a platform, a cause you care passionately enough about to promote it for your entire year as a titleholder. I volunteer with my platform for at least ten hours a month, and I’m massively an under-achiever. Other girls have started their own foundations, or raised absurd amounts of money, or lead massive fundraisers. In 2016, Miss contestants alone raised more than a million dollars for the Children’s Miracle Network, on top of volunteering, and donating to their individual platforms. Pageant girls are changing the world around you, you just have to look.
If you can make it past the paperwork, it’s time to start studying. Who’s your favorite Miss America, Miss State, Miss Local? What is the solution to world hunger? What should we do about the refugee crisis? Given the thousands of years of history of the Middle East, how should America be helping the situation? Why should Donald Trump be our president? Why should Hillary Clinton be our president? (And you better have a good answer for both, regardless of your views). Pageant girls need to know history, politics, sports, current events, and every scandal that got 15 minutes of fame in the last twenty years. The girls up on the Miss America stage can answer these questions better than either presidential candidate can.
Don’t spend all your time studying; you also need a talent. I’m an artistic roller skater: it takes faith to believe I won’t skate straight off the edge of the stage. My friend is a pianist, and a piano major. She practices hours every week, has ever since she was little. We have dancers and instruments and even jugglers and jump ropers. All of it live, all of it in front of everyone you know. Don’t drop your baton. To be a pageant girl, you need confidence. You need to believe in yourself enough that when you get on that stage in five inch heels and what feels like underwear, you own that stage. The skinniest girl doesn’t win the pageant, the most confident girl does. And that brand of confidence? That isn’t a confidence you can get anywhere else, that is a confidence you learn from putting yourself on that stage and failing and getting back up again, as many times as it takes.
If none of those reasons are enough justification for you, remember that the prize is scholarship money. For many pageant girls, the scholarships they earn are the way they are able to pay for college, to get their education and go on to become doctors, lawyers, novelists, engineers. Pageantry isn’t encouraging beauty over brains, it’s allowing some of the brightest and most poised girls in the country to get the education they need to change the world.
And as a final note, to any of you young women looking to gain confidence, friendships, and scholarship money to help pay off those student loans, the local pageant season’s just starting.