The Miss USA pageant has long been a thorn in the side of any self respecting feminist. It is essentially a celebration of commercial beauty and archetypally feminine ideals. Are you talented in singing a la Sleeping Beauty? Are you decently charming. Can you smile for hours on end until your cheekbones give out?
The recently televised pageant however seemed to circle around the one thing that Miss America generally misses about females entirely: empowerment.
The newly crowned Nia Sanchez, a fourth degree black belt in Taekwondo waxed to judge Rumer Willis ( who recently flashed her tits in an effort to bring back Rihanna’s banned instagram account) on the importance of female self defense when it comes to the issue of on campus college rape. Sanchez lived for a time in a women’s shelter with her mother when she was 8 and volunteers at women’s shelters passing on her knowledge of self defense.
Sanchez wasn’t the only feminist dream to compete this year. Miss Pensylvania’s Valerie Gatto spoke up about being the product of her mother’s rape and how empowering it has been for her to show that circumstances need not define you. First runner up Audra Mari talked of joining ice hockey in school to overcome being bullied.
This is all well and good but it is hard not to feel like it is all a ploy created to placate feminists about the generally misogynistic competition. The truth is, that it is still a competition owned by Donald Trump, the patriarchal and generally despicable industrial tycoon. Articles written about the event are still more interested in what the contestants are wearing than what they are saying and though it is certainly important that different ethnicities are now being represented, why is it that the winner still has to have a crest white strips smile and a Sports Illustrated bikini body to win?