Child Beauty Pageants

Sorry again for missing my last round, I will address your newest round first and then move back. Contention 1- "Competing in beauty pageants can lead to the desperation of the contestants to win. This can lead to unsportsman-like conduct and cheating. " By this same logic, school, any sport, or any sort of competition is a negative thing. Just because there is a potential for cheating does not meant the expiernce is a negative one. This is like saying the way to teach a child never to steal is by never allowing them in a store. Of course cheating is wrong but that does not meant any situation or event that has the potential for cheating is. Contention 2 "Losing pageants can cause children to have major insecurities" Again losing in anything can cause a child insecurities. Life is a series of trial, and tests. We are constantly competing for grades, for jobs. Yes losing can hurt a child self esteem but does this mean we should shy away from any competition. Surely not it just means parents must be careful how they frame competition and defeat. If a child loses respect for themselves because of failures at a beauty pageant, I hardly see how one can blame the existence of the pageant for these negative effects and not the parents. One cannot blame the Irrational behavior of a parent of the existence of the competition. Alright moving back to the round I missed. Contention 3 "Pageants do not boost self esteem" First i think it is important to make the point that while your description of the mental process of the participants might be accurate for one girl that does not mean it is true for all girls. You are speaking in a way that implies that all girls feel this way, but first off there is no evidence of this, and people participate in these events such as these for a huge variety of reasons. To try and simplify the thought process of every girl who participates into your above statement is completely unfair. You show how pageants might take self esteem away from some girls, but you failed to recognize how it could add self esteem to others. The very fact that they are competing in contest judging beauty is boost all of itself. Just because you are not the fastest runner on a cross country team does not mean you could not demolish the average student in a race. Contention 3.5 "The lack of self esteem makes them turn to eating disorders, and suffer from depression" While this may be true for some this again just comes back to the idea that any time there is a competition there are always those parents and even kids who desperately want to win. They put such a high value in victory that they are unable to deal appropriately with loss. Some in sports might turn to steroids, in intense schools situations other might turn to aderol or other performance boosting drugs. The fact that these children have lowered self esteem is not to be blamed on the pageant but instead on the parents and maybe even the child personality as a whole. Conclusion I apologize if I have misrepresented any of your points, I am trying to use more organizationally strategies in my arguments, and this sometimes lends itself to strawmen. I have not made many points myself mainly countered yours as I believe the burden of proof lies on you to show that beauty pageants are negative for children. The main point of my argument is that pageants are just another competition and it is important to cut through the negative stereotypes surrounding these pageants and see that despite how you might feel about them personally, the pageants are not the cause of the problem.