The Beauty Pageant

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thousands of women are competing for one prize,the gleaming crown of a beauty pageant. The pageant world creates many different views from people on whether it is beneficial and helpful or awful and damaging. With the growth in popularity of beauty pageants comes the pressure to compete and the effects of competition have also grown. Pageants are one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. Today there are roughly 3,000 pageants a year which attract approximately 250,000 children (Children). Beauty pageants were not always in style, though. In 1854, showman P.T Barnum tried to start beauty contests to increase the popularity of his circus (Blakemore). His attempt turned out to be a failure, however, because only women with problematic reputations entered. Eventually in the 1920s, pageants took flight (Merino). At first they followed P.T Barnum’s idea of being held at a circus, but later evolved into the first Miss America pageant held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1921 (Blakemore). While many people may believe that, even from the start, pageants had a formal, talent, and swimsuit category, it is only partially true. It was considered unacceptable for women to wear swimwear in public in the ‘20s. The swimwear was added as a competitive category in pageants in later years in the ‘30s-‘40s Another component of beauty pageants that has evolved is the age groups. It started out with women ages twenty to thirty and has grown to all ages. Some children begin at a few months old (Alter). There are now pageants for almost everyone,including singles ages twenty to thirty, children, men, women who have lost limbs to landmines, and elderly (Merino). There are virtually thousands of different pageants for people to compete in. Even though contestants may choose from a variety of pageants, the pressure to win is always present. The media is one of

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