There have been quite a few reviews on MS on this topic. All have downgraded the Beauty Contests and glorified the “inner beauty” tribulations and achievements of females. No second opinion about that.
But physical beauty does play a great role in life both for women and men. When we meet a person for the first time, it is the face that casts the first impression, then the voice and the body language. Who would want to talk, leave aside associate, with a unshaven scruffy and unkempt man, who may otherwise have unparalleled abilities and capabilities – Who wanted to love THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTERDAM?
The physical beauty does matter otherwise women around the world would not be spending zillions of dollars on makeup products, soaps, shampoos, perfumes and designer clothes. Even MS(and I am sure other opinion sites as well) is full of reviews written by female members on perfumes, Avon and other makeup products. Even men spend millions of dollars every year on after shaves, grooming products and designer clothes, which clearly illustrates that we all want to look physically beautiful. In India women try to wear the same clothes and make their hair the same as the Bollywood actresses and men try to copy the actors. In the West girls do the same like copying Madonna, Spice Girls and boys do the same like the latest craze of hairstyle of David Beckham in the UK?
Yes, parading females in swimsuits before thousands of people(millions these days due to e-media) is degrading but then it is the choice of those females and they are under no duress to do so. They do it to become famous and make money. In the summer, anyway, in the west women wear swim suits and slinkiest bikinis on the crowded beaches in front of thousands of glaring eyes and they do seem to enjoy the attention- otherwise they would not wear them.
Human nature is to attract attention, to be the star attraction and physical beauty is the biggest tool of all to achieve it and we all vie with each other to score. Few years back I had read a book, titled “The Exploited Man” by an American female doctor who had illustrated throughout the book that Man is the most easy person to exploit and females are born with natural ability to do it and I feel that in Beauty Contests the Men’s feelings are being exploited to the full by the contestants.
Back in 1920 Atlantic City hotelman wanted the summer tourists to stay in town after the Labour Day celebration. He came up with a brilliant idea to stage a flashy pageant and thus started a tradition of Beauty Pageants, which has gathered so much momentum today that it is impossible to stop it. Every country around the world is staging its own contests and the main organizers, well, happen to be mostly females. I think that it is females exploiting females and it is only females who can put a stop to it.