I checked out this site as a means to investigate beauty contest debates for some ridiculous class I am being forced to take by the school board. I was so interested in reading the pro and con responses about this topic that I was compelled to submit my side.I have read each and every article for the for and against regarding this topic and have come to a conclusion: people who think they are right talk too much and people who actually right never say enough. Perhaps this is because the righteous ones are busy with something called a life that apparently the self-righteous are forgetting about so that they may hammer in some sort of sexist argument regarding bathing suits and make-up.

Bottom line: f you don’t like beauty pageants, don’t turn on the tube. If it is sexist to you, wear your frumpy fashions and don’t bathe in protest. Quite frankly, those of us who have made the realization that beauty and brains can live in harmony and that looking pretty is a far cry from all a real pageant requires are the ones in these so-called sexist contests. So let us be and we’ll let you be. I quite like no-makeup Saturdays in which I only slap on protective moisturizer and spf, but I also look like I am roughly 18 with no make-up on. I look far more pulled together on the work days when I dress neatly and properly, with hair and make-up all tidy and nice. I don’t do it for my husband…he thinks I look great in a potato sack and acne. I do it for me, which is a rational reason. I feel more professional as an adult and others find competency in my performance. Conversely, I was once criticized for my appearance…a team leader once told me to dress more like the school children I teach in order to make the children feel more at ease. Why? I am not here to be their buddy and nor am I here to have them wipe boogies on my skirt. I want them to aspire to be something great one day (a teacher!?), just as women in pageants do each time they take the stage. Equality is not having hairy pits and shunning feminine beauty. Equality is making the rationalization that all people were made in God’s image and that we should uphold that image to the highest.

But, like I said…if you truly want to wear your sweatsuit and whine about the ridiculousness of apple berry lipstick, well by all means…be my guest. I just know that when it’s time to pick the next higher up, I will be looked at with a lot more confidence in ability as I retain high quality performance coupled with feminine grace and beauty. Wouldn’t you want your daughter to do the same?

Pageants may not be for everyone, but those who do participate recognize that a little bit of mascara goes a loooooong way in the real world.