Miss Contestants

Contestants of beauty pageants all over the world are, as one might expect, as varied as the places that they come from. These Misses have devoted much of their time and energy not only in the interest of actually winning the contests, but also that of bettering themselves and the world in which they function.

Beauty pageants set age brackets for their contestants. The Miss Universe and Miss USA competitions for example hold that their contestants be somewhere between 18-27 years of age, while their teenage counterpart, Miss Teen USA must be of at least 15 but not over 19 years old.

Apart from that and other requirements like being single (for pageants under the Miss Universe banner), there really is no all-encompassing physical characteristic used to describe the contestants of beauty pageants. Women of all colors, all facial shapes, and eye colors—every kind of beauty in the world—take it upon themselves to make the places they come from proud.

Of course, one must acknowledge the proliferation of the stereotype: the brainless beauty queen. However, it is a stereotype being slowly erased, as intelligence is duly measured in the contest through question and answer portions which demand critical thinking and fully informed responses. What is most interesting of the myriad of contestants’ minds is that their intelligences all come from different backgrounds, different cultures, different beliefs, and ultimately, different facets of knowledge yet to be recognized by the world.

The endgame: contestants of beauty pageants are part of no stereotype; they are all different, and a beauty pageant, particularly worldwide ones, is a way of celebrating the difference, and the harmony that these various notes make in the end.