Children's Beauty Pageants

Your argument is that I didn't support my arguments.. well that was something that was obviously going to be addressed. So your point is null and void. 1.Beauty pageants are detrimental to the proper growth and development of a child's abilities - Beauty pageants hinder a child's ability to to learn how to communicate correctly. Through pageants, they are taught that life is a competition, and to treat everything as so. In this way, they are not "properly" growing and developing full capabilities in the respect that a child unexposed to beauty pageants would. 2. Pageants create competitive and unfriendly surroundings - The difference between this and a debate tournament is that, firstly, one has to be a certain age to even be on this website and to be eligible for most debates. Also that beauty pageants don't involve discussing intelligible topics and uncovering new arguments and understandings based off of knowledge. So, there are many differences, if you would like me to continue I could list endless amounts but I think I made my point. Competition has nothing to do with physicality's nor has it ever. I am an athlete, I compete regularly. I play basketball and run track, however, neither sport is more competitive than the other, and in track I make no physical contact. The type of competitive in this case creates this feeling of superiority because the competition is based on looks and a "talent", not off of ones natural or hard worked abilities that have been trained my a coach and through the efforts of teamwork where one learns a healthy way of competing. "The girls have to appeal to a judge." Thing of the word "judge"- judgment, judgmental- these children are subject to such scrutiny- much more than any athlete on a team. 3. Children are taught false values and are harmed psychologically - I am directly insulting all hair stylists, barbers and make up artists... tell me again how I manage this? My point is that children, by being judges on their appearance and "talent", learn that ones value lies in their looks and abilities, not in their self worth. Want some psychological harms? Well, lets see, a child- as a result of beauty pageants- is going to develop such insecurity when it comes to looks. He/she will have become so accustomed to this that they will then base the value of their peers off of the way they look. They are more likely to develop eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia, binging and purging. They also constantly experience anxiety, not only from the pressures of competition but also from the pressures of their family, peers and judges. 4. Children are not old enough to understand that this is not the real world - "Beauty Pageants aren't supposed to be the real world" - this is definitely true. What also needs to be considered though is the fact that for a young impressionable girl or boy- this can seem very much like the real world and an entrance into adulthood. They have so much expected of them, performance-wise, looks-wise, that they become accustomed to this way of thinking and apply it to life. What can be understood from this argument is that these children are too young to know the difference between their beauty pageant lives and their real lives- they don't know that looks aren't truly everything, or that everyone has to have a "talent" and be good at something. This is the point, we cannot expect their lives to be as innocent and enjoyable as they could have been once exposed to the cruel spotlight. The way they are treated reflects directly onto their peers because they are too young to distinguish the difference. 5. Shows on this (ex. toddler & tiaras) glorify children's pageants - the money is used in the wrong places - I completely agree with your point, but if that truly is the case, I'd assume one would rather be pressured into a life of academic excellence than a life of false values. There is always going to be pressure to do things, without that we would not make decisions, without it there would be no cause and effect- however, it is what is chosen that matters. Parents are putting money into spray tans, caps for teeth, dresses, swimsuits, outfits, hair and lessons- all which could be placed into an education or college fund. Yes, the parents ACTIONS on the show are horrendous, but beauty pageants themselves are not much different and all require the same amount of effort, time and money. Although you do make a few solid points, the cons outweigh the pros immensely.