It’s still just hypocritical, sexist crap

Miss America will no longer be a contest judged on looks and brains — now it’ll be a contest of brains and talent. So no more swimsuits, no more evening gowns for Miss America. Brains over beauty. This change is the, ah, brainchild of Gretchen Carlson, Miss America 1989, who is now chair of the competition. Carlson, mind you, is also the woman who spent a decade as an anchor/sex object at Fox News delivering the news and her opinions in ridiculously tight cocktail dresses, while being sexually harassed by Fox slob Roger SAiles. But it wasn’t until she lost her gig at the network that she decided to sue them for sexual harassment. No, she didn’t quit and sue the network while she was being harassed — she waited until they kicked her to the curb, winning a reported $20 million big ones. Now she’s decided the pageant, er, contest, is no longer about looks. Seriously? Right off, all these contests have always been about beauty, and are true sexist nightmares with women done up like trussed Thanksgiving turkeys. But the truth is, nobody’s forcing these women to do it. OK, little girls are forced into it, but not grown women. The whole scholarship excuse is such a load of manure you could spread it around 100 organic farms and still have a giant pile left over. Colleges offer all kinds of scholarships based on merit, need and athletics — not on how you look in a bikini or stripper evening gown. So the solution is that they either kill off the competitions altogether, or we all just admit that, yes, people like to look at beautiful women competing against each other in skimpy outfits. And like it or not, viewers do — it’s as surefire as talent competitions. And come on! These contestants like to show off their good looks and the bodies they’ve worked tirelessly in the gym to achieve, or they wouldn’t enter in the first place. What will the Miss America competitors do now to show their superiority to other women? They’ll dress, Carlson said, in ways that suits their style and interests. Yeah, that should be riveting. Instead of swimsuits and gowns, they’ll wear what to display their goals? Dress up as a chef, wear a politician’s pastel pantsuit or doctor’s scrubs? It’ll go from a beauty pageant to a costume party. Thing is, no matter how you change Miss America, women are still being put on stage and made to compete with one another. They still aren’t competing on a fair stage against men in their fields — just against each other. And that makes it still ridiculously sexist.