Basics of Beauty Pageants

A beauty pageant or beauty contest is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants, although some contests have evolved to also incorporate personality traits, intelligence, talent, and answers to judges' questions as judged criteria. The term almost invariably refers only to contests for unmarried women such as the Big Four international beauty pageants; with similar events for men or boys being called by other names and are more likely to be bodybuilding contests.

The organisers of each pageant may determine the rules of the competition, including the age range of contestants. The rules may also require the contestants to be unmarried, and be "virtuous", "amateur", and available for promotions, besides other criteria. It may also set the clothing standards in which contestants will be judged, including the type of swimsuit.

Beauty pageants are generally multi-tiered, with local competitions feeding into the larger competitions. For example, the international pageants have hundreds or thousands of local competitions. Child beauty pageants mainly focus on beauty, gowns, sportswear modelling, talent, and personal interviews. Adult and teen pageants focus on makeup, hair and gowns, swimsuit modelling, and personal interviews. A winner of a beauty contest is often called a beauty queen. The pejorative term clapper often refers to losing candidates while its rankings are referred to as placements.

Possible awards include titles, tiaras or crowns, sashes, scepters, savings bonds, scholarships, and cash prizes. However, adult and teen pageants have been moving more towards judging speaking, and many no longer contain swimsuit or talent sections. Some pageants award college scholarships, to the winner or multiple runners-up.

Criticism

Critics of beauty pageants argue that such contests reinforce the idea that girls and women should be valued primarily for their physical appearance, and that this puts tremendous pressure on women to conform to conventional beauty standards by spending time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling, and even cosmetic surgery. They claim that this pursuit of physical beauty even encourages some women to go on a diet to the point of harming themselves.

It is argued that rather than being empowering, beauty pageants do exactly the opposite because they deny the full humanity of women by placing them as the subject of objectification; they reinforce the idea that a woman's only purpose is to look attractive.

Another criticism that is placed on beauty pageants is in the way beauty is quantifiably scored as highlighted by the "Myth of the Perfect 10". Beauty becomes a numerical coefficient in ranking contestants, and this type of scoring still remains followed as a system even in nationwide beauty pageants such as Miss America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_pageant

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The Annual Brazilian Booty Pageant

Yes, there really is a pageant in Brazil that gives an award to the young woman contestant who displays the most lascivious buttocks.  This ceremony has been going on for six years.  The most recent pageant was in October of 2016 and included a photography shoot of the finalists posing as saints sharing a Last Supper as in the da Vinci painting.  Catholic Church officials in Brazil were infuriated, the press covered the incident, and thus the photograph of the contestants was widely circulated.  See:  http://theberry.com/2016/10/25/this-brazilian-booty-pageant-is-under-fire-eb/