By Angie Caruso

Imagine a world where we never cared to attach faces to names, to stories, to accomplishments, where an obsessive need for physical satisfaction wasn’t prominent. In 1985 cultural critic Neil Postman warned his readers that our society was simply “amusing ourselves to death,” a claim that would later warrant an entire book.

As a culture, we’ve silently agreed that ideologies are subordinate to appearances, leaving us to hold “good showmanship” as more important than anything else. Postman argued that entertainment infiltrates all areas of life, and the Miss America pageant is no exception.

The nature of this beauty pageant as an institution forces viewers to draw immense focus to physical appearances (it is, quite literally, right in the name). In an effort to fight against its appearance-oriented nature, the Miss America pageant has taken recent measures to revamp the organization. The entire board that runs the competition has been replaced, but a more dramatic change stands out.

After nearly a century, Miss America will continue on without the swimsuit competition.

In an era that’s rapidly becoming defined by female empowerment and gender equality, Gretchen Carlson, the organization’s new chairwoman, has spoken out about this change.

She claims that this decision is part of the board’s desire to shift the focus onto the contestants’ intelligence and talents and simultaneously away from their bodies. Carlson herself is an active feminist, made clear by her stance against workplace sexual harassment a few years back.

In short, we have a board made up of mostly women and a chairwoman who passionately advocates for women’s rights, all of whom control a pageant that is built on judging women.

Interesting.

I’ll admit, removing the swimsuit competition from the Miss America pageant does make a statement. Without this showcase of women’s bodies, we have one less physical component to judge them on. But the problem with this pageant lies beyond what we judge these women on. It’s a matter of judging them at all.

It’s clear that the organization behind Miss America is looking to send a message along the lines of “women are more than their bodies,” urging the public to look beyond the contestants’ appearances. Society is bringing to light the practice of judging women by their bodies as an issue because we are beginning to realize that it’s unfair to form judgements about other people without knowing them first. Sound familiar? Swimsuit competition or not, the pageant as a concept becomes a field day for prejudice.

We tend to dismiss this practice, wrapping it up with our history notes about the Civil Rights Movement and going on with our day. But at the end of the day, even if it doesn’t involve the contestants strutting around in swimwear, we’re judging them on other factors.

Some will argue that these judgments are valid because they are based on information the contestants can control. We’re not judging them based on their bodies but rather their intelligence and charisma—qualities they express to us and have influence over. Doesn’t that make our judgments fair?

Miss America as a beauty pageant contradicts the pursuit of lifting women up. For one, we’re a society that’s been raised to place heightened focus on appearances. No matter how much we agree with someone’s ideology, regardless of how talented we find someone to be, it’s very difficult for us to not take appearances into account.
Removing the swimsuit competition takes away the obvious chance for us to do this, but, as humans, we’re likely to judge subconsciously without prompting. The swimsuit competition removal is a positive step, but only to an extent.

Furthermore, these women are well aware that they’re being judged by millions of people. They’re going to curate their appearances, responses, behaviors, body language and more to fall in line with what our society holds to be the highest standard. How is this uplifting or empowering? We give these women a platform that we claim they can use to vocalize ideas, bring awareness to issues they care about and foster support for a talent or passion they have. The fault with this is that the platform is a pageant, a display, and as an audience, we’re just looking to be entertained.

The pageant doesn’t serve the viewers or the contestants. Watching Miss America just forces us to engage in prejudice. How healthy of a practice is that?

At this point, removing the swimsuit portion isn’t enough. Elimination of the Miss America pageant altogether is a stronger political statement than merely altering its structure. If you’re sick, you treat the root cause of your illness, not just the symptoms. By treating the symptoms in isolation, you can’t realistically believe that the illness will be treated in full.

The illness here is forming judgments of other people based on what we can see and what we’re told is true. Taking away the swimsuit portion can help us feel better as a society, but the category is just a symptom.

After nearly a decade, I think it’s time we sought proper treatment for ourselves. The only way we can do that is resolving the fundamental issue – and that means ending Miss America entirely.

Angie Caruso, FCRH ’20, is a communications major from Bridgewater, New Jersey.