Babies, Not Barbies: A Case Against Little Girl Beauty Pageants

Naturally, young girls love to dress-up as their mothers and wear their make-up, clothing, and heels. Children’s imagination and inclination to pretend characterizes childhood. However, in the world of pageantry, there is a blur between little girls’ imagination and transforming into a fake “persona.” Although some parents believe beauty pageants are healthy competition for children, beauty pageants exploit young girls by glamorizing perfection, unrealistically portraying girls as “Barbies,” and by setting a superficial expectation in which self-esteem ties to attractiveness.

Some people believe that beauty pageants hinder self-growth and heighten self-hate. In beauty pageants, children are instructed to “cover” themselves with heaps of make-up and wear of façade of sorts. This facade eats at a young girl's self-esteem, for she believes that she must transform into an ideal character fit to appeal to a set of judges based on outfit, personality, and looks ("Child"). If a young girl is constantly shrouded by the false ideologies and superficial aspects of pageantry, she will allow other people's perceptions to define who she is. Therefore, critics argue that beauty pageants teach young girls to focus only on developing their appearances (“Child”). Young girls begin to believe that their self-worth is measured by external attributes. In addition, the vicious cycle of wearing a façade begins to damage the self-worth and the emotional state in the young girls. Children’s pageantry attire consists of glamorous dresses and puffed-up hair and make-up, which builds the assumption in girls that being beautiful, is based on appearance alone. Beauty pageants inherently represent shallow and superficial ideals that persist in society. Once...

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