TheVine stood in a room full of slobbering men and cheering women on Wednesday night/1962 to witness the feminist-free evening that is the Miss Universe Australia crowning. Highlight of the evening was two indigenous entrants. Society, that's your permission to objectify proud aboriginal women too.
Organisers claim theirs is some higher purpose of pageants, but truly their sole aim is to select the best physical specimens, to completely objectify and reduce someone to the sum of their looks alone. Pageants represent exactly what women have been
chaining themselves to fences, being
thrown in jail, fighting for
fair pay and fairness in the workplace for a hundred years.
Yes, there's a faint nod to the contestant's intelligence. It's the Q&A section where this happens: "What environmental issue would you try to tackle as Miss Universe?" "Global warming, because I think it's an issue that affects us all" and "What would you do to draw attention to homelessness?" "I would, um tell people about it." Really.
The event organisers and Tottie Goldsmith are hardly entirely to blame. People keep entering them. People who are the prettiest of all their friends already. And who knows why they do? Perhaps they don't think they could make it on their brains alone. And maybe they couldn't. They are after all entering a contest to be Miss Universe Australia. Is it the universe or is it Australia? Or is Australia the universe. That would be a good question for the Q&A.
So thanks for the booze and canapes, you very pretty girls. But never try to defend a pageant for more than it is - a very simple way to un-pick intelligent people's hard work to advance women. Yes, you are all very beautiful, and credit to you for it, but events like this are essentially a meat market. Fuck, in those ridiculously small swim suits I can see your every spare rib, and what you ate for lunch too.