Child Beauty Pageants

Behind the Glamour of Child Beauty Pageants

In a world where padded bras and skimpy clothes are available for children ages eight and younger, parents spend small fortunes on make-up, costumes, and hair extensions for their child to win beauty pageants. In 1996, 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey—a pageant regular—was murdered, bringing national attention to the child beauty pageant circuit (Ralston). This case received national attention, not only because JonBenet was found bludgeoned in her own home, but because of the many images released of her that showed a sexualized child wearing expensive costumes and being made up to look two decades older (Harvey). Children should not be allowed to compete in beauty pageants because they teach children that

success depends on looks, are costly, and give adults to opportunity to inappropriately judge young children’s bodies.
The first reason that children’s beauty pageants should not be allowed is that the pageants “send the damaging message that appearance is the most important thing about a person” (O’Neill).

Some claim that they help boost self-esteem but that is just not true. India Knight states in her article titled, France had said ‘non’ to those creepy child beauty pageants-why don’t we? that “no confidence was ever bred by a child being judged on its looks.” She also goes on to say that pageants involve “the indoctrination of the poor children… that all that matters are looks, ‘glamour’, and ‘sparkle’” (Knight). Not only do the pageants teach that outer beauty is everything, they also “encourage girls to change their looks to fit narrow, invented standards of beauty” (O’Neill). With so much pressure being put on them to look good, they can lose confidence and even possibly suffer from eating

disorders.
Secondly, children shouldn’t be allowed to enter pageants because they are pricey and are similar to gambling because the outcome is never guaranteed. In the article, Should 4-Year-Olds Be Beauty Queens? Justin O’Neill brings up the fact that parents “routinely drop five grand on a child’s pageant outfit.” He also points out the “small fortunes” that are also spent on travel, entry fees, hotels, make-up, and modeling coaches (O’Neill). While some prizes include cash and scholarships, it does not always work out in the contestant’s favor says Courtney Goralewicz’s mother. Goralewicz says, “You spend five hundred dollars on an entrance fee, five hundred dollars on airline tickets, and then they cry onstage and you’ve lost everything” (The High Cost of Beauty). Surely this cannot be good on the finances of the contestant’s family—especially when they lose.
Another reason for removing child beauty pageants from American life is the opportunity they give to adults and parents to ogle and live vicariously through the children that are competing.

The parents of these contests, says Knight, are “creepy and frustrated with dull, unlived lives, desperate for escape from drudgery, which they choose to seek out through the medium of slapping fake tan on infants and parading them about like monkeys” (Knight). This is a major problem because since the parents are in charge of their child’s wardrobe, they often choose the eerily revealing clothing to win over the judges and for the attention that both they and their child receive. Knight also says that another part of pageants are the adults creepily judging the children while they sport layers of make-up and “grown-up outfits” (Knight). This judgment of child bodies is wrong and under, daily circumstances would be considered inappropriate and

pedophiliac.
However, many still claim that pageants can be good by helping contestants with winnings and other numerous prizes. Annette Hill in the article The High Cost of Beauty mentions that the money she earned from winning pageants put her through college. Hill states that pageants can teach kids how to speak in public and to take charge, building their self-esteem as well. Also in the article, Griff O’Neil says that pageants promote “mother-daughter bonding” (Ralston). These are all good things that can come from pageants but we cannot simply ignore the fact that these events often sexualize young children and dress them in exposing costumes. In the article, 'Little Doll' Case Full Of Intrigue, Adam Harvey writes that in JonBenet’s case, “the world was captivated by images of a sad-eyed six-year-old girl made up to look two decades older, with ruby-red lipstick, a thick pancake of foundation, heavy black eyeliner and provocative clothing” (Harvey). Images like these leave an unnerving feeling knowing that the child pictured is often no older than eight.
Child beauty pageants should not be allowed because they teach the contests that beauty is more important than anything else, are expensive and they involve creepy, pedophiliac adults judging children in skimpy clothing and padded bras. These pageants can be damaging to self-esteem through means of invented beauty standards and can cost the families a fortune on the closet of thousand dollar dresses. Furthermore, pageants help promote the idea that it is okay to sexualize a child if it is for the monetary gain of the family. JonBenet’s murder also shows us how dangerous pageants can make the lives of the young contestants that are being paraded about like dolls. Overall, child beauty pageants do more harm than good and should not be allowed to continue.