The miss world and miss universe and whatever beauty contests are there have several lacunae. The biggest is that these competitions should not be held at all. They are very discriminatory in that they have runner-ups and the rest who did not receive the title. What does that mean? That the rest are lesser than ‘the one’ in some way. And this is where self esteem and issues regarding the same crop up (“Miss South Africa wins 2019 Miss Universe crown,” Dec.9, Gulf Today).

Women are always made to feel less in regards to their body. Airbrushed models on mags, hiding of a little extra flab, gap between the thighs, what not. And these competitions, they should be done away with. They extoll the above in a woman’s body and this determines who gets the crown.

Yeah blah blah speech about women empowerment. Women aren’t gonna be empowered if we have these beauty competitions. What about that woman who is a doctor with medicine sans frontiers? Or the mother who manages the household or the woman who stands up against injustice? They are miss universes in their own universe.

The other lacuna is the all woman panel. Yeah we get the gender equality. Shows how much of it is evidently present with this panel. And surprisingly the crown wasn’t split like the Booker prize was, just because there the jury couldn’t bear a black receiving the entire prize.

Joyce D
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