Beauty Pageants and Beauty Culture and Their Effect on Children

What Beauty Pageants and Beauty Culture 

 Are Teaching Young Girls

 

     With the obsession of beauty that is occurring in our society today, we have to stop and wonder about the impact it is having on children, especially young girls. With barbies and makeup sets, girls are already taught at a young age what is considered to be "beautiful." They see it on TV and witness other women participating in their own beauty enhancements; these become their role models. Once a girl witnesses a woman who is considered to be beautiful on TV, she also believes, just like the rest of us, that she wants to grow up to look just like her. This is where it all begins, where she starts setting a standard for herself to meet. They watch their mothers, sisters, pretty much any older woman or girl, and soak in every little technique they do like a sponge. The mass market acknowledges this as well, and feeds fuel to the fire by promoting makeup kits strictly for young girls. The video underneath this text is a commercial for a Bratz (Bratz are a certain brand of dolls that are similar to barbies, but portray an edgier sort of look) makeup kit. The toy itself includes fake makeup for young girls' Bratz dolls as well as real makeup that can be used on their own faces. This teaches children at a very early age that in order to feel beautiful, or feminine, they need to wear makeup. They also feel as though this is what they have to do and what they are expected to do as girls, thanks to society shoving those expectations down their throats through media.

           For most young girls, their main role model is their mother. Since our society is completely obsessed with beauty culture and has such high expectations for women to meet these beauty standards, these rub off onto the younger generation of girls as well. Nancy Chodorow explains this type of mother-daughter relationship by stating, "a girl's gender and gender role identification are mediated by and depend upon real affective relations. Identification with her mother is not positional- the narrow learning of particular role behaviors- but rather a personal identification with her mother's general  traits of character and values. Feminine identification is based not on fantasied or externally defined characteristics and negative identification, but on the gradual learning of a way of being familiar in every day life, and exemplified by the person (or kind of people- women) with whom she has been most involved," (Gilbert 374). Without even trying, all women are seen as role models to younger girls. The majority of women that they are exposed to are all involved in society's beauty culture and so they pick up the trait simply from the exposure. I know for myself when I was younger, I couldn't wait until I was allowed to wear makeup. I used to watch my mother and my aunts apply their makeup before they would go out and I would be in awe, and was always eager to try it for myself. My mother, however, would always tell me that I was too young and that I didn't "need" makeup. But I of course believed that I did and that I wouldn't be beautiful unless I was wearing it as well. The same goes for my younger sister; I'm a terrible role model. She constantly witnesses me spending hours on straightening my hair and perfecting my makeup. Marlena is nine-years-old and finds great joy in painting her nails and smearing hot pink lipstick on her lips (she looked quite festive at the last holiday get together). She just thinks of it as fun, and it makes her feel feminine and as though she fits in with the rest of society. In my opinion, it probably makes her feel like she's "mature." In her young mind, she is fulfilling what she needs in order to fit into the look of the rest of the women in our society. However this is an unhealthy ritual for girls to get involved in if they get too carried away. 

            As soon as young girls begin to absorb the essence of beauty culture, they also begin processing body image. They see older women and analyze their entire being, from their hair to their face and makeup, to their breasts, down to their legs and pretty shoes. The next experiment that young girls begin conducting is "stuffing their bras/shirts." They begin comparing themselves to all of the older women that they are seeing and realize that there is a large difference between their bodies and their own bodies: breasts. I know I did it as a little girl and I'm sure every girl has when she was growing up. They crumple up tissues, cotton balls, socks, whatever they can get their hands on, and shove it in their shirts to make it look as though they have breasts. My sister actually just recently did this as well (except she doesn't even wear a training bra yet). It was humorous at the time but when you actually stop to think about it, it's somewhat sad because subconsciously it's like she feels as though she isn't feminine enough and is doing it to feel more like a "woman." This just proves that beauty culture absorbs so much of the popular media that is being engraved into young girls' brains that they already are performing their own little "enhancements" to their prepubescent bodies.  

         Additionally to this, what makes it all increasingly worse is the idea of children's beauty pageants. Little girls who participate in these pageants are subjected to complete scrutiny on their physical appearance, and they are only children! These types of pageants bring to home the idea that the only important aspect of a girl's whole being is her physical appearance. A girl's femininity is implanted into her subconscious at a very young age. Chodorow expands upon this by stating, "there is a sense in which their schooling is pseudo-training. It is not meant to interfere with the much more important training to be "feminine" and a wife and a mother, which is embedded in the girl's unconscious development and which her mother teachers her in a family context where she is clearly the salient parent," (Gilbert 377). Mothers who put their daughters through any type of beauty competition are displaying to them that beauty truly is more important than their schooling. These competitions put all sorts of unnecessary stress onto the young girls' lives when what they should really be worrying about is having fun as a child, playing games, engaging in hobbies, sports and activities, and focusing on school and developing their intelligence. However, the childhood of any young girl who competes in beauty competitions is completely ripped away from them because that becomes their main priority; normally because of the parent's involvement and pushing the child to excel in them. The child unfortunately does not realize that it is unnatural for them to be engaged in such activities, so they just obey their parent that is directing them, since they are their parent and the child simply assumes that whatever they is what they should be participating in. 
 

This poor girl is only seven-years-old. For how much she is made up (and probably has a spray tan) she looks as though she could be much older. No seven-year-old should ever look like this or be placed on display in such a way.

            There is a television show called Toddlers & Tiaras which is featured on the TLC television network. The show focuses on young girls and their mothers and all of the efforts that they go through in order to prep them for an upcoming beauty pageant. There are many people who believe that this whole concept is completely unmoral, but for some reason these children-based beauty pageants still continue. One woman named Michelle Trincia had written an article conveying a valid point about preserving the innocence in children and how these types of competitions are ripping it away from them. Trincia states, "There is social pressure everywhere, especially on women, to look and dress a certain way for a majority of our lives. So why would a parent take one of the few members of society lucky enough to still be blissfully ignorant of these pressures and throw them into the fire at such a young age?" (Trincia). This is a completely valid statement. Why would anyone wish to force a young girl to face the harsh reality that is our society and how well you meet its standards, at such an innocent moment in their life time? They're already going to experience all of the beauty pressures once they are actually old enough to somewhat comprehend them. For their childhood, we should allow for them to hold onto their innocence and carefree lifestyles for as long as possible. 

 

          The video seen above this text is a snippet from the show Toddlers & Tiaras. It shows a mother preparing her daughter for a beauty pageant by whitening her teeth. This goes to show what extreme measures some mothers go to in order to "perfect" their child's "image." The mother first bleaches her son's teeth in order to show her daughter how much whiter his teeth are than hers. She even states, "see how yellow your teeth are compared to his?" No child should ever be forced to whiten their teeth. Come to mention it, I don't even whiten my own teeth! The mother claims that this is an alternative to "flippers" which is apparently what all of the other pageant girls wear in their mouth (flippers are like tiny dentures made for children). 

        As a child, a young girl is still forming her own identity and getting a feel for herself as a human being. She is just starting to develop her own "look" which displays her personality and how she wishes to represent herself. With all of these adjustments and alterations being made to such a naive mind, the child has no other choice but to feel as though there is something wrong with her naturally and that she needs to change herself in order to be considered beautiful or accepted in society. For average young girls, "puberty is often a time when girls in the process of being socialized into their gender are also politicized by it... They challenge the lessons of sex, race, manners, mores, and everything else about girlhood that we learn everywhere from MTV to Tiger Beats to Toys "R" Us. They offer clear insights on crucial intersections of feminist consciousness and pop product," (Jervis 5). Unfortunately for these beauty pageant girls, these ideals are being burned into their brains much sooner than that. It

This eight-year-old girl is receiving botox surgery, thanks to her mother

strips them of the little freedom that they have of feeling good in their own skin before they get old enough to wear society's ideals begin to wear down their self esteems. Jervis continues with "the blurring boundaries between childhood and adulthood in pop representations is sometimes cute and poignant, as in movies like Freaky Friday and its remake or those wacky Gilmore Girls, but much more disturbing- as when frat-house retailer Abercrombie & Fitch began peddling tween-size thong panties printed with cutesy come-ons for the training bra set," (Jervis 5). There is nothing that is "okay" about young girls being subjected to such criticism and pressure being put on how they look; they are children. Some parents try to justify putting their children through such havoc by saying the pageants promote necessary skills for when they become older; like building interviewing skills or gaining confidence. However in actuality, the beauty competition as a whole is completely undermining their self-confidence since they are constantly being told how they can and should improve themselves.
           On top of the pageants demeaning a young girl's self confidence, "many psychologists believe that developmental and emotional problems can stem from the pressure and value system that pageants embody... parents who put their daughters in pageants can contribute "in very direct and concrete ways" to "the precocious sexualization" of their daughters," (Hollandsworth). The girls are taught to be superficial and basically fall into every single negative, female-based, gender stereotype. Hollandsworth continues with a quote by Mary E. Doheney, Ph.D., of the Family Institute at Northwestern University, "They are presented in a hypersexualized manner that is completely inappropriate to their ages," (Hollandsworth). This  opens the door to possibilities of sexual predators who may be honing in on the pageant girls as well, but that's besides the point. 
         The problem itself usually resides within the mother's unhappiness with her own being. Mothers become so entranced in the idea of her daughter being "the most beautiful" because they feel as though their daughter is basically a copy of themselves. Nancy Chodorow explains this boundary confusion with the "mothers' not completely conscious reactions to their daughters' bodies as their own (over-identification and therefor often unnecessary concern with supposed weight or skin problems, which the mother is really worried about in herself)," (Gilbert 379). The type of pressure that this puts on the girls is astronomical. Not only are they trying to keep their mothers happy, which is just about impossible since they always have a critique to make on the pageant girls, but they also begin to blame themselves for not being pretty enough if they do not succeed in the pageant, resulting in the beginning of an everlasting insecurity issue in the young girl. 
          Something that I have found shocking after reviewing information on adult beauty pageants and child beauty pageants is the lack of African-American women and young girls. In my next post, I will be digging to find out why that is; until next time!

Sincerely,
Samantha