Ninth grade students in Stephanie Hurt’s English class at Brodhead High School have participated in the National Writing Project’s College, Career, and Community-Ready Writer’s Program (C3WP) all year. Students learned to consider multiple perspectives around an issue and to write evidence-based arguments asking for change. For their final argument, students chose an issue they care about, researched the conversation surrounding the issue, and wrote an evidence-based letter to a real audience, such as these letters to the editor.
From Jersey Medenwaldt
Brodhead High School
To the editor:
Although some people claim that beauty pageants can be beneficial to women of all ages, we should not promote these competitions as they are actually detrimental to women’s self-image.
Since the early days of pageants, controversy has surrounded the competitions. “...the 1968 Miss America pageant was faced not only by protest from the black community, but from white feminists as well. T
he feminist protest was organized by New York Radical Women, who spoke out against the oppressive nature of a contest where women are judged based purely on their beauty.” This shows that women have been noticing issues with pageants for over 50 years now.
These beauty pageants also teach girls that, “...worth of a person is solely based on appearance.”
Some people, however, still believe pageantry is beneficial to women. Pageant participants often claim they gained confidence, friendships, and communication skills. Although this may be true, there are other activities girls can participate in that will allow them to gain these skills without the drastic negatives that also come with beauty pageants. Mark Oppenheimer from the Los Angeles Times compared pageants to boxing. He said, “Think of what a good boxing gym, for example, can do for its participants: promote clean living, help children find mentors, maybe get them to college or the Olympics.” Anything you work hard for in your life can help you gain these skills. Whether is it in school, at home, or at work, these skills can arise in many other ways.
So, although beauty pageants claim to help women in life, they have more negative effects than positive effects. These pageants teach women to compare themselves to others, and that looks are everything. In a world where women are criticized all of the time, women need to support each other, and beauty pageants only add to the criticism. There are better activities for women to participate in that will build their character, instead of beauty pageants. With all that being said, we should eliminate beauty pageants from our society, and focus on encouraging every woman feel beautiful and confident in her own skin.
