Mini Barbie Dolls Child beauty pageants should be banned. The expanding trend of child beauty pageants is growing rapidly in the United States and should be stopped immediately. Mothers enroll their daughters into these beauty pageants and the little girls, sometimes as young as four years old, compete against one another almost entirely based off of their outer beauty. The pageants throw in the “talent” section for the girls to compete in where they show off a gymnastics routine or something physical that supposedly directs the judges eyes off of mainly beauty, but all in all that is exactly what they are judging these little girls on. These children are way too young to be worrying about what they look like when they look in the mirror.
For most parents and their little girls it is just good fun. They do not take the beauty pageants seriously. For a few parents the beauty pageants become an obsession. This is when beauty pageants for children can suddenly become very harmful. “Critics of the industry warn that the stresses of competition, coupled with an extreme focus on physical appearance, can have a negative effect long before these girls will be eligible for Miss America.” (Triggs, West and Aradillas 160-168) The loss of self-esteem, the inability to show a full range of emotions, the fear of failure, the extreme focus on physical image, and the discord with or fear of parents are a few of the symptoms those little girls will suffer from.
They’re learning that physical beauty is the primary judges of their character and not their brains. Child beauty pageants are wrong because it encourages sexuality at a young age, they can also create harm for that child, and they are sometimes being forced by their parents to compete. Young girls parading around a stage wearing a bikini and pounds of makeup is very wrong. The outfits that they are wearing are outfits some grown women wouldn’t even wear because it’s so inappropriate. There is a popular television show called Toddlers and Tiaras that documents what goes on during these child beauty pageants.
Pageants consist of the child modelling sportswear, evening clothing, casual, swim, western, celebrity wear, an outfit of choice, and there is a division for talent. Throughout all these sections, contestants are usually wearing makeup, as well as sophisticated hairstyles. The judging in competitions is based on individuality in looks, capability, perfection and confidence. * Child beauty pageants should be banned because they give these children the wrong idea about what beauty is. Fake eyelashes, fake tans, lipstick, makeup, fake nails, flippers which are fake teeth, teased hair, hair extensions, waxing, high heels, practised smiles, rehearsed dance routines, manicured nails, and in some cases children getting Botox.
Instead they show praise towards her and her whiteness by buying white baby dolls, even for black girls. “The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll….all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.” Not only do the girls of this novel learn that whiteness is superior through the white baby dolls and the idealization of Shirley temple but adult women too have learned to despise their own color and learn as they grow that whiteness is the desired color. Whiteness is considered the cleaner color. When Pecola spills berries all over the clean white ladies house this
Keisha Dotson July 19, 2010 English “Should Children Beauty Pageants Be Consider Harmful” Most people when they think of a child beauty contest or pageant, they think of the glamour, big hair styles and the over the top make up jobs for the child in question. Really and truly the pressure of the pageant itself can lead to serious self esteem issues and other psychosomatic issues. Children beauty pageants should be consider a psychological health risk for young children and their childhood. The main reasoning behind child beauty pageants is that the parents say that they enter their child or children are to give an increase in confidence. But according to (Lalan Maliakal), she states that “the mothers pressurize their children to work their appearance to look like a Barbie doll.” Young Children forgo their improvement and childhood years for beauty pageants and pressure by their mothers to be the best, which for the most part is not good because the child’s virtuousness have been blemished and compress by false synthetic similes and counterfeit eyelashes and sophisticated appearance .
Alteration of Appearance From America’s Next Top Model to Toddlers in Tiaras, people of all ages pursue an ideal perfect beauty. Whether it is spending hours getting a fake tan or spending a few minutes applying makeup, alteration of physical appearance surrounds us all. There is a common consensus that people must fix their flaws in order to be deemed as attractive by society’s standards. But where do we draw the line between which types of alterations are socially acceptable and which are not? Society unintentionally leads people, especially women, to ruin their natural beauty by encouraging them to enhance their physical features in superficial manners in order to be seen as beautiful.
Beauty pageant participant, Kelsey Killeen said, “When I started going into pageants, it gave me so much self-confidence.” Pageant moms believe pageants are a good way to teach their daughters skills needed in life. Eight main skills mothers thought or hoped their children would learn from pageants were acquiring confidence, learning to be comfortable onstage and around strangers, gaining poise, determining the best way to present oneself, realizing the need for practice, learning good sportsmanship, becoming more outgoing and learning to listen (“Child Beauty”). Some parents have even said that they have placed their children in pageants because of a birth defect their child had (“Child Beauty”). These parents wanted to support the fact that their children are normal and beautiful no matter if they have birth defects (“Child Beauty”). In numerous pageants it is required that the contestant raise money for a local
Youthful Beauty In the world of spray-tanned nine year olds known as 'Child Beauty Pageants', spending thousands in an effort to win a simple tiara is a common--almost mandatory--act. Although, the tiara is not all that is won in these pageants; a sense of pride and supremacy is also at stake. What is risked when these pageant parents put all their emphasis on the outer beauty of their impressionable daughters? At such a young age, a child's future mentality depends on the morals and priorities they are brought up to have. To prevent the potential superficial women that may come from these pageants, there should be an age limit present in child beauty pageants.
It is bad that Barbie, a 6 foot tall, 100 pound, size 0, infertile doll is possibly believed to be realistic and perfect (Bennett, Saren). She is one of many reasons young girls eventually develop a low self-esteem and an inaccurate idea of body image. Due to Barbie, young girls have also developed eating disorders, and the lust for unnecessary, unrealistic material objects. Girls should not be pressured about the way they look, act, and dress (Bennett, Saren). By definition, Barbie is a trademark doll representing a slim, shapely young woman, especially one with blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin (Barbie).