Social media recently lit up over the announcement that the Miss Teen USA Pageant would no longer showcase the swimsuit competition. A pageant without a bikini competition? Is this even possible?
The very idea makes pageant traditionalists, and most men, yearn for the 1960s when feminism was only concerned with bra burning on the streets outside the pageant. This feels like a hostile takeover. Whether they like it or not, Miss Teen USA without swimsuits will be the new normal.
When I first posted what I considered to be good news to Twitter, people were already in their respective ideological corners, unwilling to consider the greater ramifications of this seemingly innocuous and superficial move.
Full disclosure: I competed in the Miss America Organization (not Miss USA/Miss Teen USA, which is part of the Miss Universe Organization and formerly co-owned by Donald Trump). As a part of that experience, I competed on stage in a swimsuit three times: once underage at 17 years old at a local competition, once at Miss Michigan at age 18, and then onstage at Miss America. As I walked down the Miss America runway in a bikini, I was confident and happy, just 19 years old. I was proud of my hard work to accomplish a toned physique through healthy exercise and a balanced diet —a real triumph considering I had overcome a battle with anorexia as an adolescent ballet dancer just a few years earlier.
I didn’t think much about the morality or implications of the swimsuit competition at that time. There was so much more to the competition — the talent portion, the harrowing 10-minute private interview, the community service and platform development. Furthermore, the job of Miss America, as I learned when I won in 2008, is far from being one of a sexual object. There are no bikini photo shoots, but there is a lot of speaking on Capitol Hill, lobbying congress, being a spokesperson for various non-profit organizations, and serving as a role model to young women you meet in person and on social media. I also won more than $65K in scholarship money for my college education.
Today, I can’t help but wonder: Why is the swimsuit competition necessary at all, in Miss America, or any other pageant? Why, when the job qualifications lie so much deeper than the God-given physical proportions that may or may not earn a “10” on a judge’s score sheet?
This question is even more important when looking at teen competitions, which are considered the JV version of the big leagues. It is called Miss America’s Outstanding Teen (MAOT) in the Miss America program, Miss Teen USA in its corollary. Since its inception, MAOT has not featured a swimsuit competition, while Miss Teen USA has. It is shocking to me that featuring girls aged 14-19 onstage in two-piece swimsuits has not been called into question more broadly before now. Shortly after I gave up my title, even though I was in the Miss competition and not the Teen, I started to be vocal in the media and online about the destructive nature of the swimsuit competition for everyone. Not just the women or girls competing, but also for the women at home watching, their boyfriends, husbands, and sons.
Here is why. To begin with, I saw and continue to see the personal devastation and destruction caused in young girls by unrealistic beauty ideals that our society props up: stick-thin models, ballerinas, pageant girls, princesses, the list goes on and on. While beauty standards are starting to change and body diversity as represented in fashion and advertising is increasing, it is not at the pace that it must be. By age 10, 80% of American girls have already been on a diet at least once in their lives, and 70% of girls aged 6-12 want to “slim down.”
This is disastrous and can lead to the low self-worth that accompanies dangerous eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and self-harm, among other issues. As a survivor of anorexia I can attest that we must protect our next generation of young girls from these life-altering and deadly disorders. Furthermore, when we sexualize girls in the media and in society at younger and younger ages, they can’t focus on pursuing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields or discovering their talents and passions. More than likely, they are going to focus on being “hot” and physically attractive in a less-than-innocent way. You might argue that they will anyway, whether we have swimsuit competitions or not; but shouldn’t we be lifting up role models to girls for far different reasons anyway? It is never too early to start protecting the next generation.
Western culture has long glorified the young and the beautiful — and the younger and more beautiful, the better. Women feel the pressure as soon as they get one wrinkle to get Botox, and models start walking the runway in Dior gowns meant for 35-year-old women at age 14. Formerly innocent Disney stars, like Miley Cyrus, make the rite of passage into womanhood by vamping up, proving they are adults by becoming highly sexualized, usually around the age of 18, but if it can start before that time, even better. We should be ashamed. We are the world’s biggest hypocrites if we claim to want to fight the selling of girls as sex slaves, and yet put them in our magazines and onstage in swimsuits before they even start menstruating. This kind of moral depravity is what sucks dry the identity development of our youth, and increasingly makes pedophilia, child pornography, and all kinds of sexual exploitation more “normal.”
Miss Teen USA eliminating the swimsuit competition is about more than getting headlines or feminists winning a small battle in their goal of getting rid of pageants entirely. I believe firmly, as I experienced, that pageants can prepare a woman for life unlike any other mechanism. They gave me the confidence and communication skills that I use in my job every day. However, I could have gained all of that without having to model in a bikini before the age of 18. I’m optimistic that this move is a step in the right direction: moving away from sexualizing our children and giving them a chance to develop a healthy sense of identity outside of being a sex object. For the sake of the psychological well being of the next generation, the exploitation of children must end.
Kirsten Haglund is a public speaker, Community Relations Specialist for Timberline Knolls, and president of the Kirsten Haglund Foundation who served as Miss America 2008.