Beauty Pagents

It's natural for young girls to obsess over Barbie, having perfect skin, make-up, hair, it makes the perfect imaginary world for little girls to play in, who would have imagined that this perfect Barbie doll would come to life, as our 6 year old daughters while competing in a beauty pageant. They ware the latest lipstick and matching eyeliner, some have fake hair and even fake teeth, they prance around in sequence gowns, and sophisticated costumes, times have changed, and the sexualization and commercialism of children have increased. Pageants promote such a narrowly defined standard of beauty.

If you look, really look at this little girls they don't even look like little girls but rather little woman these weird postures and twitched face expressions are not about satisfying themselves but rather satisfying the impossible standers of there parents.

Daisey Mae, an eight-year-old girl featured on Toddlers & Tiaras, was telling cameras that, "Facial beauty is the most important thing, in life and in pageants."
She is has also seen saying: 'If you think your kid is ugly or something, you might not want to do pageants because you're not going to win or anything."
I feel sorry for Daisy, as she did not come up with these ideas all on her own. She is a victim of the lies she has been doused in by the adults that have exposed her to this culture. These girls are to young to say no.

Elizabeth Day interviewed a 7-year-old named Amber who participates in the mini miss UK this is what she had to said "Amber do you enjoy entering the beauty pageant?" Amber thinks for a second and then nods her head, "Will you be entering anymore?" "yes" she pauses "if mummy told me to." The problem with beauty pageants is that the girls are being persuaded to say yes, "there are examples of young girls screaming in terror as there mothers approach them with spray cans," says a Australian Law maker Anna Burke said, "Clearly, pageants risk the exploitation of very young girls who really do not have the capability to express their own views." These pageants are not about the girls at all, it is usually their scary mothers trying to live through them. Dragging them across the country and spending hundreds of dollars, these mothers are not doing their daughters any favors.

8-year-old Britney Campbell is the latest name to hit the headlines in association with glitz child beauty pageants. Britney’s mother Kerry was injecting Botox into the little girl’s face and also performing “virginal” waxing to inhibit hair growth. Kerry Campbell is a licensed beautician and justified her actions by stating, “Lots of pageant moms do it.” May 16th, Britney had been removed from Kerry Campbell’s care by San Francisco’s Child Protective Services.

In an interview by Yvonne P Mazzulo with a 20-year-old Daney Meyer of Florida, she had this to say about her time on the glitz child beauty pageant, “My mom wanted to be a pageant queen and she put me in them pageants when I was 9 months old. By the time that I was 8, I had done over 400 pageants. When I was 12 I broke my leg at a pageant and that actually saved me. I used that as an excuse to stop and my mom was really angry with me. I hated doing them. I hated everything that I had to do to look the part. It was painful and I would never do that to my child.” Daney has an 18-month-old daughter and she shared that her mother wants to place Daney’s daughter in glitz pageants. Daney’s mother has stopped speaking to Daney as a result of her decision not to allow her daughter to participate in beauty pageants.

Parents can also contribute to the sexualization of their daughters, for example, by entering your 6-year-old daughter in a beauty pageant in which she can engage in behaviors and practices that are socially associated with sexiness: wearing heavy makeup to emphasize full lips, long eyelashes, and flushed cheeks, high heels to imitate adult woman. The media and reality TV are promoting stereotypes that transform young girls into sexual pieces, just look at the growing number of school girls as young as 8 years old who wear padded bras, high heels, or makeup. What is this telling our children about how to present themselves to society or telling them that the only way to fit in is to wear padded bras and loads of make-up. There is also the explosive growth in child pornography that feeds the demand for children as sexual objects.In the past, this market for children was fueled mostly by pedophiles. Now, grassroots workers and brothel managers report widespread requests for children. Men from the suburbs head for the poorer parts of cities or to sex tourist destinations, where they look for children to molest for money.

The most cited reason parents give for putting their children into beauty pageants is to boost their child's self-esteem, as well as teach poise, public speaking skills, and confidence. Women, wont to boost “self-esteem.” But what is that self-esteem based on: Pride in oneself as a full human being, or as someone who possesses immense beauty in a global society where beauty is valued above all else?

Some parents who have children with birth defects say they enter them into beauty contest not in hopes of winning, but to ensure that their child knows that they are beautiful. There is, however, no scientific evidence that supports this. But there was a study published in 2005 by a Harvard Gazette Archives group,a small control group of eleven woman who had competed in beauty pageants as children were compared to eleven woman who had not competed. They were compered in different areas , such as age and overall body satisfaction. In general, they found out that those who competed in beauty pageants as children were more dissatisfied with their bodies, and had greater differences in measures of bulimia, and trust issues than those who did not participate.

Minister for Children Frances, Fitzgerald published a study of 2,000 people between ages 10 and 21 at the importance od body image. When asked: How important is your body image? 82% of girls said it was either slightly or very important. When asked if they were dissatisfied with there bodies?: 26% of girls said yes. The most significant negative impact on body image was comparing oneself with others witch was 53%, followed by bullying 46%, media 39%, and celebrities 38%. Among the young people who took part in the study was Kaila Dunne 17 from Limerick, who said " I'd have spent ages in front of the mirror before school doing my make-up and hair." She also says she is still aware of girls who exercise in their bedrooms before bed and who cut foods out of their regular meals to avoid wait gain.

In a study done by the National Association of Eating Disorders also said

• Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among teenagers.
• 95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25

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Up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder) in the U.S.
• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.4

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"When a child's sense of identity at this young age is formed by adult standards of beauty, hair make-up, clothes, and even there figure, for a child who hasn't even hit puberty yet is wrong" This was said by Karen P. Kramer a teen life couch at Finding your Pearls. Women are tired of being men's web pages and always getting hit on. This girls are getting external validation that there beauty is there worth. Beauty is skin deep my friends not what's on the outside. We need to get it out of our head of what society says is beautiful everything has beauty, its just up to you to find it. Isn't time for men to stop seeing women as just something to look at, lets stop sexualizing our children. Let little kids be little kids.