Do women actually get judged on their butts?
Swimsuit is a part of the contest. I don’t know what her personal experience was. What we try to relay with the girls and the judges is healthiness and fitness. America right now has a problem with obesity in the younger generation. We also have a problem with anorexic young people, too, being insecure in their own bodies. We’re promoting healthiness. Being fit and toned is altogether different than a body that people are looking at for just pleasure. There are a lot of comments floating around online now from people who say they don’t want to vote for someone who participated in beauty pageants because they’re demeaning to women, which is a fairly common critique of pageantry. Obviously, in their ideal form, pageants are about more than just looks, and they reward women needing scholarship money. But do you think there is truth to claims that they’re demeaning? There are probably pageants out there that I probably would not want to be associated with. Speaking of the Miss America orga
