The politics of beauty

MPHO TLALE
Staff Writer | Monday May 20, 2013 00:00

The origin of beauty contests, also called beauty pageants, dates back to the 1920s in American society. The story behind the origin is that a certain Atlantic City hotel owner started them for marketing purposes. He wanted the city's tourists to remain in town longer. Over the years the pageants spread and eventually reached African nations.Jewellery designer Boitshoko Kebakile said that she was for beauty pageants because she believed they were a great platform to showcase a woman's potential while celebrating what she stands for. She added: 'It is however necessary for organisers to invest in the personal development of a candidate to ensure competent entrants that have both substance and beauty that can make a woman worth being celebrated in society.'Poet and United Nations (UN) ambassador to Botswana on the United Campaign, Berry Heart, (Keotshephile Motseonageng) has contrasting opinions.Berry Heart, whose campaign uses artists to sensitise the society against violence on women and girls, said that although some pageants had the potential to make a difference and really take up the meaning of beauty, most are marred by controversy and the aim to make money above anything else.

The poet gave examples of some local beauty pageants that had made controversial headlines about some organisers who engaged in sexual activities with the contestants and promised them that they would win. For that reason she feels pageants give organisers a platform to sexually abuse young women. Furthermore, she said that the pageants were disadvantaging to women and had no element of woman empowerment in them, as contestants sometimes do not even get their prizes.Berry Heart touched on International beauty pageants and said they disadvantaged black women.'These pageants are not for black women. The European type of beauty cannot be compared to our type of beauty because it is totally different. But these pageants use that standard and it doesn't cater for black women. 'For instance even our body types, hair or skin types are not the same,' she said. She said that the pageants brainwashed the black woman into believing that the European version of beauty was what was acceptable over embracing who they are. Another issue she raised was of skin bleaching which she says is on the rise because black has never been seen as beautiful. 'I know some girls who use cheap skin lightening creams in the quest to look lighter. This is reinforced by societal stereotypes and beauty pageants that also plays a role.'Young and upcoming artist Angie Chuma is against beauty pageants and what they stand for. She felt that pageants only served those who won titles because they got to maintain the standard body image that society expected women to portray as ultimate beauty. She adds that beauty pageants do not serve the society as it narrows down the diversity of what women look like.

Chuma also commented on child beauty pageants that she described as a heartbreaker. 'They leave little space for a child to discover her own definition of beauty. They are taught that they have to wear make-up to disguise what their natural beauty fails to portray,' said Chuma.Describing what defines a woman, Chuma said that there was never a definite answer to that.She feels that persona and character resonate that definition of a woman more than her style of clothes, what she looks like and her size or figure. She said: 'Her God given worth is what ultimately defines her, what she has to offer to the world to make it more enriched, whether it be through her culture, art, or work. It is in the value she can give the world that surrounds her.'A media lecturer at Limkokwing University, Kagiso Madibana, shared the same sentiments as Chuma and  said that the only purpose that beauty pageants served was to objectify women. She said that women were competitive by nature and such platforms only bred animosity among them in their quest to be declared as the more beautiful one. She said the pageants were more about facial and body value than anything else. Madibana said that she did not have anything against women who took part in beauty contests. 'It is an individual's choice to decide whether she wants to go on stage, parade and get judged,' she said.According to Madibana, a citizen should be an ambassador of a country and not wait to be crowned to do some social good. Her concern with pageants is that they do not motivate young women to get up and do anything productive, instead they wait to be crowned to do charitable work.Madibana is also concerned that beauty pageants do not work to the advantage of the girl child as they send out a wrong message that breed insecurity as far as body and facial beauty is concerned.