The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1959-09-25
Beauty Contest
Is An Insult
JOSEPH BREIG-

The thing that is centrally and most profoundly
wrong with beauty contests, as we know them. is that
they are living lies, alluringly masked. 1t is true that
they are potential temptations against purity; but that
is not the deepest heart of the matter,
To endanger purity-that magnificent virtues
bad enough; but to perVert human integrity, to dis
tort our view of all reality so that we see and think
falsely, judge enormously, and therefore misdirect our
hves-this is deadly.
Women, even more than men, ought to be in
flexible opponents Of these displays. Yes, the fleshly
parades, the pictures in the newspapers and magazines,
and all that, add up to one more stumblingblock for
manly nobility.
BUT WHAT WOMEN must realize is that the con-
tests are a contemptuouS insult to, and a gross falsifi-
cation of, everything womanhood is. They undermine
the truths that are indispensable for protection of
Woman's rights and dignity.
What these affairs say to us is this-that a wo-
mans worth is measured by her physical charms; that
she is entitled to honor according to her bodily and
facial form; and conversely, that if she is not thus en-
doWed, she IS of little consequence.
Those are lies. They are fatal lies because they
falsify what is most vitality important about human
beings, and in a special way about women; and also
because they strike at the foundations of the three
things particularly dearest to women.
10 THREE THINGS are marriage, the family
and the home. These three great building blocks of
civilization and virtue cannot rest upon the notion that
the body is greater than the spirit, that straight limbs
are more desirable than spendor of soul.
1t is a wicked and dangerous thing to say to young
III LII Liz that WIG LlE9 SlIDhlA SCCh III q WIZ
is what they would look for in a r%acehorSe; and that
that is the whole story. But that is what the beauty
contests tell us.
This is a grievous II iuStice to the countless young
women whose desirability lies mainly in their good
ness, their loyalty, their intelligence, their self-sacri-
fice-in the permanent qualities that are a lifelong
blessing to a man and his children.
WHAT is MORE. the beauty contests put these
qualities on the defensive, They create in young wo-
men a false humility, an abiectness that makes them
underValue themselves, and strive desperately for
false values.
Thus we see them resorting to weird devices in
the hope of making themselves as physically attractive
as the beauty champions. They pluck their eyebrows,
mascara their eyelashes, hpshck their lips, and SO on.
This would be all right if it accomplished its OBJ
Jectlve; because physical attractlVeneSs is good too.
But in most cases the effect is the opposite; the true
attractiveness of these girls is hidden under a pitiable
attempt to achieve the impossible.
If WE MUST have contests for young women, 1t
would be the part of truth and wisdom TO select the
winners on the basis of true worth and accomplish
ment. This would not draw crowds? This would not
interest the newspapers and magazines? The pro-
motors of such an affair might be pleasantly surprised.
Certainly no beauty contest winner has won the
heart OF the natlon-or for that matter the hearts of
many nations-as did Shirley ONeill when she risk
ed death in the jaws of a shark to get Albert Kogler
to shore, and there baptize him.
Girls like Shirley are the young women we ought
to be lloniZng, ought to be recognizing and showing
so much nobility in Womanhood that we could have
worthiness-conteSt from now to the end of time, and
forth as inspiration for women everywhere. There is
never begin to exhaust the available material