Outline
Topic: Child Beauty
Pageants
Thesis Statement: Beauty pageants are
exploitative and detrimental to the child’s overall well-being in a way that it
damages the child’s health, it exposes the child to the danger of pedophiles/being
in the public eye and lastly it instills a message to the child that physical
beauty is the primary judge of one’s character therefore reducing one’s
self-worth to appearances.
I.
Introduction
A. Background
of the topic
B. Thesis
Statement
II.
Body
A. All
that is good about child beauty pageants
1. Promotes
self-esteem and builds confidence
2. Teaches
the child the importance of camaraderie and friendly competition
3. Benefits
the contestant through financial assistance and academic scholarships
B. All
that is bad about child beauty pageants
1. Damages
the child’s health
2. Exposes
the child to the dangers of being in the public eye
3. Sexualizes
young girls and enforces the message that physical beauty is the primary judge
of one’s character
III.
Conclusion
A. Summary
B. Restatement
of the thesis statement
Inside the Living Dolls’ World:
The Ugly Truth about Child
Beauty Pageants
A stage full of dolled-up or Barbie-like
little girls who with their fabulous mini gowns or dresses, or tiny swimsuits
being worn, walk that stage flashing a million dollar smile on their little
faces with all the poise and projection, judges eyeing them, an audience
applauding and with their pushy parents cheering for them at the corner. That
would be a typical child beauty pageant scene. Basically, a beauty pageant is an assemblage of girls or women at which
judges select the most beautiful (Cartwright, 2011). Beauty pageants
mainly are divided into categories such as the talent portion, the modeling
portion and the personal interview or the question and answer portion. Beauty
pageant winners are so-called beauty queens and awards for these beauty
contests include titles, tiaras or crowns, sashes, and cash prizes. Indeed
today, beauty pageants for young girls are gaining more and more popularity.
However, it has not only attracted popularity, but howls of criticisms
too. I truly believe that beauty pageants are exploitative and
detrimental to the child’s overall well-being in a way that it damages the
child’s health, it exposes the child to the danger of pedophiles/being in
public eye and lastly it instills a message to the child that physical beauty
is the primary judge of one’s character therefore reducing one’s self-worth to
appearances.
Although some people say that
beauty pageants are not necessarily a bad thing, knowing that just like about
everything else- there are the good and bad aspects. And to realize the big
picture behind every thought, we have to examine both. Let us start with what
all that is good about these child beauty pageants. First, they say that child
beauty pageants promote self esteem and can be an instant confidence builder
for the child. It is beneficial to the child’s self esteem in a way that it
helps the child to step out of her comfort zone and overcome her shyness. This
gives the child the confidence she needs to showcase her talents as well as her
communication or public speaking abilities. Gaining poise and confidence is
cited most often by parents as the reason for joining their child in these
contests (Levey, 2000). The second one has something to do with camaraderie or
friendly competition. They say that these pageants can teach the child the
aspects of rules and fair play. They claim that competing with others can train
the children to be gracious winners as well as good losers. Also, beauty
pageants, they say, are meant to make the child realize and understand that
there is a competition out there and that joining a beauty pageant is one means
to preparing her to face the challenges in order to succeed in the future.
Third is that these beauty pageants can be considered as a beneficial way for
those who are experiencing a financial downside, because more often, winners of
these pageants are given academic scholarships or financial grants. This in
turn can minimize the family’s expenses for the child’s schooling in an
academic year, a great help for those families who are financially challenged.
The things mentioned above may have
sounded good for us to deem that beauty pageants can be somehow acceptable by
society; however I think that those are not enough for us to immediately
consider joining the fad of beauty pageants. Now let us remove the sugarcoating
of these so-called beauty pageants so that we may be able to see clearly the
ugly truth about this beauty pageant world. First and foremost, these child
beauty pageants damage the child’s health, for it can cause cognitive,
physical, and psychological problems to the child (American Psychological
Association, 2007). A lot of child advocates and psychologists have already
spoken out against child beauty pageants and claim that these pageants are not
in the best interest of healthy child development. According to William Pinsof,
a clinical psychologist and president of the Family Institute at Northwestern
University, “Being a little Barbie doll says your body has to be a certain way
and your hair has to be a certain way. In girls particularly, this can unleash
a whole complex of destructive self-experiences that can lead to eating
disorders and all kinds of body distortions in terms of body image.” Another
claim was that of Dr. Ruth Schmidt Neven, a psychotherapist and psychologist
who said that beauty pageants transform children into “pedophiliac fantasies”
and should be illegal. Others have also called out for these beauty pageants to
be outlawed. Other health problems that a good number of girls experience
because of these pageants include paranoia, anxiety, and feelings of
inferiority, anorexia, bulimia, poor self-esteem, depression and a countless
number of more issues (Cartwright, 2011). Given these health-related problems,
who in the world would risk their child to join pageants and acquire these
problems that may soon manifest as long term disorders in life? Pageants
definitely have a negative impact on the child. Pageants can cause kids to
suffer numerous issues upon growing up and more likely those issues the child
faces can be fatal.
Another downbeat would be about the
fact that children are being exposed to the danger of pedophiles or being in
the public eye. Such as in the case of a former American child beauty queen,
Jon Benet Ramsey who was only 6 when she was brutally murdered in 1996. This
so-called “Jon Benet factor” is most likely the primary reason why some parents
do not allow their child to participate in such pageants, and this murder has
attracted so much media attention that it has made pageants socially unacceptable
to many people (Levey, 2000). Letting the child join beauty pageants is like
putting her all in for a public display, along with putting her life too in
jeopardy.
The last one has to deal with
beauty pageants being responsible for the sexualisation of young girls. It also
promotes a materialistic belief in them and it enforces the message that looks
or physical beauty today- is the currency of one’s true beauty. Henry Samuel
said in Britain Telegraph that French lawmakers want an all-out ban on child
pageants, accusing the media and its other forms for promoting stereotypes that
transform young girls into “sexual morsels.” Just look at the growing number of
school girls as young as 8 who wear padded bras, high heels, or makeup and
strike suggestive poses. Children because of beauty pageants are adultified,
sexualized and judged by an adult defined, narrow beauty ideal. They are
deprived of their childhood and make them eager to grow up. They get to wear
sexual outfits and act inappropriately for their age. These young girls with
every pageant also have to wear pounds of makeup, false lashes, have the hair
on their skins waxed, wear high heels, which basically, are not designed for
small feet; some also have to wear fake hair and even fake teeth. Shockingly,
one mother even injects her eight year old child Botox from time to time all in
the name of beauty pageants. Good news is, that mother has now lost custody
over her child. With all these being done, contestants of child beauty pageants
may develop a misconception of life and beauty as they grow up. They may think
that only physical attributes matter and that it is the primary judge of one’s
self-worth or character. It has something to do also with the child’s
self-esteem. Pageants can damage the self-esteem of a young girl when things do
not go as she would hope (Nussbaum, 1998). What will a mother tell her three
year old daughter if the little girl says that she did not win because she is
not beautiful enough?
In the end, although some parents
believe that it is a great idea for their children to join beauty pageants
because it can promote self-esteem, healthy competition and say that it is a
great way for their children to gain confidence that will help their child to
become socially acceptable, the good things that it brings still do not
outweigh the negative things or the consequences that a child can obtain
through joining beauty pageants. Because the truth is, pageants can damage the
child’s health, may it be physical or psychological. It also exposes the child
to the public and therefore risking the child’s safety. Lastly, it promotes the
objectification and sexualisation of such young girls which is highly
inappropriate and it can also lead the child to the conclusion that physical
beauty is the primary judge of one’s character and that her self-worth is only
based on what she got from the outcome of the competition. Those parents who
are mainly responsible for pressurizing their child to join such absurd beauty
pageants must ask this question within themselves, are the long term damaging
effects that the child can get from joining these pageants worth the prize? As
for me, a big no. I suggest that beauty pageants must be limited to only those
who are already mature and old enough to make the decisions themselves of
joining with full consent and when they are more emotionally capable of
handling the negative emotional pressure or self esteem impacts one can get
from joining such pageants. Because for little girls, it is better for them to
just stick playing with their Barbie dolls. They still have a lot more drinking
of milk to do.
References:
Hello. Got a problems with approval essay to ielts here is nice custom writing service 1WS. For some money you will have perfect structured essay.
TumugonBurahinPossess bunch of home work? Don't would like hang out on writing? Make use of this essay service www.essay-writing-place.com. Great, quick and low-cost assistance for essay writing. No longer waste time!
TumugonBurahinCan I know who's the writer cause I use this essay as my reference on my assignment..
TumugonBurahin