Pageant needs empowerment focus
The Miss Manawatu and Miss Teen Manawatu pageant on Saturday night was quite the glitzy affair.
The Regent on Broadway was packed with enthusiastic supporters for the more than 40 girls and women in the show.
The event has grown and evolved over the years, particularly this year with outgoing organiser Kate Balfour’s rule changes to allow married women and mothers to enter, as well as removing the swimwear parade in favour of an activewear section.
Balfour said at the time that the pageant was well overdue for a revamp.
These rules still apply to most national pageants, including Miss Universe New Zealand, so it was a progressive move away from the traditional and outdated beauty pageant rules.
Miss Manawatu would benefit from more changes like this from whoever takes up the helm in Balfour’s absence.
The pageant is certainly already a strong platform for our region’s young women to build confidence and thrive in our community, but it was a shame to see the only additional awards given on the evening were for best hair, best gown, most photogenic and friendship.
It would be great to see honours for community contribution, leadership, skills, culture and change-making.
Throughout the evening it was mentioned several times that the competition was also about ‘‘beauty on the inside’’ and the eight-week journey was intended for the entrants to learn and grow through personal development workshops.
There’s no doubt it takes confidence to walk on the stage, perform and speak in front of hundreds of people and that was truly wonderful to see, but other than this the entrants’ inner beauty transformation was not all that clear on the night.
It’s important to empower our young women by showing their worth is not just based on external values.
Every young woman has passions, aspirations and goals, and this event is the ideal platform to boost and showcase these, giving the women purpose and a support network, and showing them they have value beyond what society and media deems important.
What is already a wellsupported and impressive community event could be made so much better with an even greater focus on empowerment, achievement and inspiration.