Growing up in a predominantly female environment, I've always been quite an independent person, and would characterise myself as more of a feminist on the scale. I have to admit though, that I don't really understand the word, but I had taken it to fundamentally mean that the societal expectations on different genders is what it is; a social construct. Which hence implies that we shouldn't be restricted by the limitations due to the expectations, or taboos on us.
However, frankly speaking, the word seemed to have more negative connations than positive ones (though it's supposed to be neutral). Morever, labelling one as a a feminist seems to have more restrictive than liberative effects on the individual nowadays, because of the absurd habit of groups of people apply the very respectable and simple concept to almost everything, and calling it affirmative action in the process.
How many times have you heard people say "feminists object to beauty pageants", or the notion along that line. I don't believe in this statement because the idea of being a feminist implied in the statement differs from my definition, firstly, and secondly I doubt the e.g journalists and people who propagate that statement have any clear definition as to what being a feminist entails. And thirdly, those who protest against beauty pageants may label themselves as feminist but that's because it's more convenient and they feel that being feminist is being anti- anything-that-is-societally-desired-to-become-a-role-model-female. I'm not anti-xxx, I just believe that the societal constructs are fluid.
But anyway, I have digressed (argumentatively- this would utterly fail if it's a proper essay but it's not). Which leads me to the point of a beauty pageant, what it is supposed to convey or what the pageant itself implies. A pageant is supposed to be a process whereby the most beautiful person is chosen from the participants (I think). And being beautiful has evolved to be more politically correct, especially in the more sophisticated contests to mean being physically pretty as well as having a (boring) flawless character. If that's so, then the Ris Low affair has certainly exposed the failings of a pageant contest. She definitely does not have the stepford housewives aka (boring) perfect character, or even minimally the credentials for that, which leads us to the question of how she became the winner of the Singapore contest. The implication of the affair hence implies that the process of choosing winners is flawed, and I would like to emphasize, due to the inability to make accurate judgement in Singapore. Well, you may say, that's human error and the human judges elsewhere may be more discerning. (I would agree, though, you don't see many Miss Universe or Miss World [the real McCoys, the ones without a country name behind-e.g Miss Universe Singapore] having such exciting records).
However, another more fundamental problem with pageants is that the judges who chose the winner don't know the ladies for more than a few days (max), and they are expected to make judgements based on insufficent knowledge on their characters. Judgements on characters, in this case, is absolutely flawed. Judges are hence more reliant on the physical component of the contest, as well as how articulate and how the contestant appears to exhibit a certain desirable characteristic (e.g elegance). Seriously, if I can know the character and how wholesome a person is from a couple of days (I may have a first impression, or an inkling, but nothing more than that), people wouldn't need to know each other for more than a week to get married right.
Anyway, I don't like to watch pageants, even for their blundering, befuddling Q&A sessions because it's too cruel to do that. Plus, they look almost the same, give politically correct answers (the ones that are really really really political correct; even politicians can't reach their level cos politicians have to direct and truthful sometimes which couldn't be all politically correct [maybe that doesn't make sense, but yes])
Sum everything above in one sentence: Pageants are boring and a flawed way of choosing women who are beautiful physically and internally)
oh ya, they sometimes announce the winners of the big pageants (Miss Universe) as the most beautiful woman in the world, but hey there had been so many winners before that girl, doesn't the word 'MOST' hold any meaning nowadays.
