Concerns for Children in Beauty Pageants

Concerns for Children in Beauty Pageants

Specific Purpose: I would like to inform the audience of the concerns I have for the world of children’s beauty pageants.

 Introduction

Attention Material: Imagine this: It’s 6:00am on a Friday morning and you are being woken up to be prepared for a long weekend of hairspray, make-up, gowns, basically a weekend of glitz and glamour. For some of you, this may sound a little exciting, but how about if you are only 18 months old?

        Credibility material: Beauty pageants were started many years ago but became more prominent in 1921, when a hotel owner started a contest to keep tourists in town past Labor Day. The winner of this contest is called Miss America. Then, in 1960, pageants were getting so popular that a Little Miss America was started for parents who wanted their children in beauty pageants.

Tie to the audience: Today the pageant world is crossing lines, for example, some of you may be familiar with the show Toddlers and Tiaras. It gives a little insight to how beauty pageants take place for children, it also portrays some of the issues that concern me.

        Preview:  During this speech I will be presenting you with insight to the different ways children’s beauty pageants are detrimental to the young participants’ psychological health, how they harm the natural childhood and family relations along with how they encourage a demeaning view of women.

Body

1. To start off with, let’s discuss how pageants contribute to psychological problems, and an atmosphere in which they learn superficial, damaging values, that may turn into disorders later in life.  

1. These problems can include paranoia, anxiety, feelings of inferiority, and low self-esteem.
2. Pageants create and reinforce the message that girls should capitalize on their developing beauty and sexuality and feeds into stereotypes about women that place beauty above intellect.
3. It teaches these children that, in order to win, they must transform:

1.  we are talking elaborate hairstyles (some include fake hair)
2. children with layer upon layer of make-up and false eyelashes on and even sometimes spray tans
3. fake acrylic nails (similar to those that I am wearing at the age of 27)
4. false teeth called flippers ( to replace recently lost baby teeth)
5. wearing expensive outfits or couture dresses
6. *Documentarian Treays has called pageants “bizarre contests in which children are painted and pompadour to look like mini-hookers.”

1. It teaches these children that it is okay to be two-faced, to gossip, to judge others based on their appearance.
2. It teaches girls to be dependent on others’ opinions and decisions for them, thus creating a child that loses the chance to gain independence, which is an important skill that children are beginning to learn at this age.
3. Due to some of the things I’ve talked about so far, as these children grow, they are more likely to deal with disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and depression.

1. Competing in pageants often leaves little time for young girls to simply just be a kid and act their age, it also detracts from family life        .

1. Pageants are very time consuming due to all of the practices, and prep time to transform into miniature divas, that it leaves little time to rest or be with friends.
2. Children in pageants rarely have time to just focus on being a kid and doing things outside of the world of “glitz and glamour”
3. These pageants are not only time consuming, but are very costly and most pageants result in an overall loss for the families who pay to participate

1. You have to take in consideration the cost of travel and hotels accommodation
2. The cost of getting all glammed up(nails, hair, tans, make-up)
3. The cost of the couture dresses ranging from $1,000-$12,000 (for a dress for a child that will only wear it once?!?!)
4. Some parents pay for a coach
5.  The entry fee to participate in these pageants

1. Sometimes these pageants can create a divided household due to the frequent absences from home and family.
2. It may give a sense of favoritism over siblings if the other children in the household are not participating as well.

1. The objectification of such young girls is highly inappropriate, it works to degrade the female gender, and even places them in danger.

1. The outfits that these children are subjected to wear are on the risqué, more adult should be wearing that side.
2. It degrades the children and women, looking at them as more of an object of beauty rather than as a person.
3. Critics worry that children who are taught to shimmy in miniature showgirl costumes, wink and blow kisses to judges and strut around in their bathing suits in public will not be able to tell what sort of behavior is appropriate outside of this setting.
4. There was a story a while back about JonBenet Ramsey that some of you may be familiar with. Essentially she was found sexually violated and murdered in the home of her parents. She was a participant in beauty pageants, which created a target due to being in the public eye with who knows what pedophiles lurking.

1. There are some counterarguments I’m sure that some of you may be thinking of, well I anticipated this and have broken some common ones down.

1. Some parents say that the pageants are fun, and the children can win scholarship money.

1. Yes, the pageants can be fun, but you have to consider who REALLY wants to be doing the pageants. A mother cannot know that her child wants to be a doll on display when she can't even talk. And with the amount of money being spent on these expensive pageants and the prizes being so small in return, your money would be better spent towards a college fund so the child has something to fall back on when it is realized that “beauty isn’t everything.”
2. Parents putting children into beauty pageants for the money for college is wrong. They are teaching their kids that the only way to get money is through exploiting their bodies in front of sex-driven men.

1. It is also argued that pageants builds confidence

1. The only confidence that a child at eighteen months needs to gain is eating on her own, standing up on her own and the confidence that her family loves her. If these children have and learn these three things, they will most likely have great self-confidence. And not to mention, there are visible effects that a child shows if she loses; she then thinks less of herself and thinks she has let her parents down because she did not place first. I believe in the long run, more insecurities are created.

1. Pageant parents have also argued that it’s like a sport, requires training, money and a lot of pressure

1. Pageants are not at all a sport, the judgments are so much more personal and based on looks and personality, not based on skill-level.

1. Some say that the children learn discipline and are able to form friendships

1. With all of the time that the child is putting into practicing and reciting, she has very little time to play with the other children and learn life skills, such as building real friendships.

Conclusion

I could go on and on about this subject, but there isn’t enough time to continue making all of my points. Just to recap, I went in detail about the different ways children’s beauty pageants are detrimental to the young participants’ psychological health, how they harm the natural childhood and family relations along with how they encourage a demeaning view of women. Children are thinking that appearance is everything and forgetting that the true beauty comes from the heart and personality. A truly beautiful girl does not need all of the make-up and hairspray, or be paraded around in a gown. She is learning false lessons on how to act around other people and not to be herself. Further, she learns to think that other children are inferior to her.