Although Pageants may be a thing of the past, their absence possibly a sign of progress, they did still provide many women resources and opportunities to accomplish their goals in life. In fact, re-evaluation of the place that pageants occupy in a societal context may be valuable.
Competition, whether intended or unintended, is still present in many aspects of society, (un)intentionally placing value on those that are “better” than others. In many of these cases, the participants were happier for the winners than they were sad they had “lost.” There was less competitive spirit than one would expect, instead a strong sense of belonging and camaraderie. Despite this, the participants were still being judged. It’s a double-edged sword.
Jeani Read wrote an opinion piece in The Province in 1992 about her disappointment that the Miss PNE Pageant was now a thing of the past. Her reflections were insightful, finding it heartbreaking that there would no longer be gowns, tiaras, or flowers. This version of femininity may not be for everyone, but it was still for someone; and now it was gone.
Jeani’s opinion piece ended with a strong argument at the end, after watching individuals in business attire compete with solely their intelligence:
“The bottom line is, young people are still parading around on stages, being rated. They are still competing against each other, as if life wasn’t competitive enough. They are still winning and losing in interchangeable, genetic categories – now smarts, instead of looks. And they seem to accept being judged this was by strangers, as an acceptable state of affairs.
Which it’s not. When we finally get a future that is good for us, the part of “beauty contest” that will be gone is not “beauty”, but “contest”.”[1]
Perhaps our framing of the “problem” with beauty pageants has been wrong; there are a lot of people that simply enjoy the spectacle that pageants entail. It isn’t about who wins and who loses, it’s meant to be a celebration, decorated by ball gowns and tiaras. It’s unfortunate that this usually breaks down into competition.
It is admirable that, in its final years, the Miss Abbotsford Pageant took notice of this problem and sought to create a program that would fully uplift everyone involved. Considering my difficulties with finding who won in 1996, along with all pageant participants attending the following social events, the pageant may have intentionally placed less value upon a “winner”, allowing more space for all to participate in this program.
But, to argue the other side, a winner may not be the worst thing imaginable. Sandi Friesen and Leanne Moore were not the upper-class urbanites one would assume would be winning a pageant, they were working class farmers and striking union members. They represented young women in BC that may not have received the same amount of attention had they grown up closer to the city.
Devi Brar’s victory was a sign that BC was and still is a strongly multicultural province, and representation in a crowd full of white folks matters. That is the strongest indictment one could give to the Miss PNE Pageant, that the non-white people living in BC were not properly represented in a competition of beauty in the province of BC. This legacy could have been changed had the pageant continued.
My personal politics dislike the idea of the “American Dream”, where anyone can come “here” and build something for themselves, by themselves. However, is it not possible to create a space where differences can be recognized and appreciated? Where people can be welcomed into the fold and a definition of “beauty” can be expanded upon? What about the girls that could not participate, due to anxiety surrounding body standards or disabilities that were not accommodated? Now, they don’t get an opportunity to put on a pretty ball gown to compete for a tiara.
Maybe “fixing” the pageant did not mean it needed to come to an end, maybe it needed to re-evaluate its priorities. Young women dedicated countless hours of their lives to this pageant, and one can only imagine what the pageant could have done to reinforce a more inclusive notion of “beauty” as time has gone on.
The legacy of beauty pageants is a complicated one, but its story is fascinating. My only disappointment is how so much detail has been lost. Most of my sources have been newspaper quotes, which would only provide surface-level coverage of the pageant. I hope this website has helped to connect the dots, so to say, and provided a better view of an event that lasted over 50 years.
[1] Jenni Read. The Province, 1992.