Miss Universe is Different

by Brynn Smith ‘19

While most beauty pageants only accomplish the objectifying and degrading of women, Miss Universe has the potential to achieve other goals. All beauty pageants parade women in front of a panel of judges, who then proceed to decide a winner based on swimsuits, evening gowns, talent, and a made up answer to the question of how they can better the world, including the Miss Universe pageant. The difference is Miss Universe has the ability to bring countries together in friendly competition.

Each country has a different woman, with different color skin, and a different set of values. In addition, each contestant actually has the opportunity to make the world a better place, like this year’s Miss Haiti, Raquel Pelissier, who is trying to find the cure for blindness. The winner of the Miss Universe pageant also gets the chance to represent and raise awareness for charitable initiatives. The Miss Universe competition has tried to incorporate a new girl- power mentality into their program which is a good outlook to have when judging women on how they look in a bikini. Miss Universe can begin to teach other beauty competitions about modernizing the messages they send out to the public.