'We're Not Beautiful

7 Days 10 November 1971 'We’re not beautiful ’' We’renot ugly’ A year ago these shouts from Women’s Liberation demonstrators scared Bob Hope and disrupted the Miss World competition. Today for the twenty first year Miss World is with us again. 7 DAYS looks at this sexist money-spinning Mecca Mart The Miss World Competition is not an erotic the stage when Bob Hope was speaking. In exhibition; it is a public celebration of the the same way we threw nothing when the Mss World contestants were going into the traditional female road to success. The Café de Paris. This was a conscious decision. Albert Hall is miles away from the We regard these contestants as unfortunate underground world of pornography. The victims o f the male capitalist system. This atmosphere is emphatically respectable, system, that makes money by persuading enlivened by contrived attempts at women to buy goods such as false eyelashes. We are sick of all this line about beauty. We “glamour”. The conventionality of the are not beautiful and we are not ugly.” girls’ lives and the ordinariness of their aspirations — “ Judge the Judges, not the Girls” Miss Grenada (Miss World): “Now I’m The first Miss World contest took place in 1951. looking for the ideal man to marry” — is It coincided with the Festival o f Britain, the the keynote o f all the pre- and centenary o f the Great Exhibition, which post-competition publicity. Their condition celebrated the Nation’s post-war recovery and demonstrated its continued technological inven is the condition o f all women, bom to be tiveness. defined by their physical attributes, born At the Festival Hall on the South Bank leading to give birth, or if born pretty, born lucky, manufacturers displayed up-to-date items o f a condition which makes it possible and interest for international consumption, with the acceptable within the bourgeois ethic, for firm intention o f putting Britain once more on the map. On the North Bank, at the Lyceum, Mecca girls to parade, silent and smiling, to be Ltd. presented their new invention — an judged on the merits o f their figures and international beauty contest. The organiser, Eric faces. (Bob Hope — “ Pretty girls don’t have Morley, lamented the fact that, “ in those days those problems.” i.e. the problems that some countries hadn’t even heard o f beauty plain girls have in finding a husband or contests” . So o f course, he congratulates the company bosses for “ shrewdly anticipating the making a successful career. Womens public appetite for such an event” . The “ event” liberation girls must be plain, because only has helped make Mecca into a £20 million plain girls would have an interest in enterprise. attacking the system.) Prior to the Miss World contest, Mecca ballrooms throughout the country had been running contests o f the “ outright” — that is, outdated — type. Local girls paraded in bikinis, or The Grand Duke’s Bride stars and G-strings and were disqualified by the Standards o f conventional beauty are, o f course, audience jeering at their “ under- or over-weight what Miss World is all about. Living up to these statistics” . standards is a part o f the fabric o f every woman’s life, not just of those groomed for the “37-24-36” competitions. In the early Russian State, the The new brand of contestants, unlike those o f Grand Duke’s bride was chosen by a similar the “ outright” type, were seen as National contest. The Duke’s men went out and chose the Representatives selected in order to stand up to 1500 most beautiful girls in the kingdom, a short international competition. T o start with Morley list o f 250 paraded before the Grand Duke’s looks for what he calls “ basic material” girls window, and he then made the final choice. This between 17 and 25, ideally 5ft 7/2in, 8 or 9 stone, barbaric byzantine practice has now been turned — waist 22-24" hips 35-36" bust 36-37", “ no more in essence — into a money-spinning institution. no less” , a lovely face, good teeth, plenty o f hair Miss World is the annual festival, brought direct by and perfectly shaped legs from front and back — television into our own homes, o f the everyday carefully checked for “ such defects as slightly commercialisation o f women’s sexuality. One o f knocked knees” . Then with the “ basic material” the demonstrators at last year’s Miss World plus the aid of cosmetics and a deportment school, Contest said during her trial: he manufactures the “ perfect product” . It is a “ I felt that the event symbolised my daily sound capital investment since overheads are low. exploitation. I saw the contestants being First of all, raw material is practically free. Morley judged by men, and I know what it feels like proudly affirms that he refuses to pay the girls to be judged and scrutinised every day when travelling expenses, gives them only board and I am just walking down the street. I saw lodging and a small allowance. Secondly, labour, women being forced to compete with each represented by performance, is unpaid except for other and being judged by men. I felt for the winners £2,500. Mecca makes up for this in them. I had no intention o f hurting them or the long run since Miss World is obliged to sign a attacking them in any way. We did not contract for future appearances. The contestants throw anything on to the stage when the were forced to make so many appearances that as Four Miss Worlds from the Sixties. Clockwise from op L eft: Miss Penelope Plummer from Australia contestants were there. We threw missiles on early as 1952 they threatened to go on strike. m ss Lesley Langley from the United Kingdom, Miss Reita Faria from India, Miss Ann Sidney from the United Kingdom. 21 7 Days 10 November 1971 WHY MISS WORLD? Obviously this wasn’t in the “ public interest” and about the British hospitality. A Miss White South the girls weren’t even accorded the sparse dignity Africa and a Miss Black South Africa make it o f union-style negotiations. Morley, giving himself possible to pretend, at least for an evening, that a man-sized pat on the back for his expertise in apartheid is not so definitive. Miss India, during “ human relations” settled, or rather pre-empted, her reign as Miss World, entertained American the dispute by rushing out and buying each girl a troops in Vietnam, and “ received cheers in spite of teddy bear! being coloured and wearing a saree” . (Bob Hope) “ Human relations” here means the art o f The Miss Third World trend reflected the “ wind of exacting services from a subordinate without change” — a view o f the world as a happy family provoking a consequent sense of injustice. Applied o f united nations engaged in peaceful competition to women, “ human relations” means exaggerated rather than violent confrontation. paternalism or diluted chivalry. The first approach Miss World viewers also see sexism insists that women are like children and therefore masquerading as a celebration o f a Venus de Milo respond to scolding or pampering. As Morley said (cameras zoom in on a copy o f the famous Greek o f the dissident contestants’ reactions to his teddy statue) the timeless heritage o f antiquity, the bear ploy “ they are all sweetness and smiles symbol o f transcendental beauty. However, Miss again” . The other approach senses the injustice of World beauty is far from transcendental, it is women’s inferior social position but suggests that profoundly temporal, out o f date in less than a polite gestures are sufficient compensation. year. At the same time the promotion and Married women are banned from the contest proliferation o f the image through advertising because, Morley explains, “ It might make a persuades women to “ transcend” their “ basic woman dissatisfied with her life as housewife and material” . mother . husbands ought to have their brains The consequence o f this “ transcendence” is the tested if they allow it” . As for the contestants expansion of the domestic market. For example, “ reputation” , this is ensured by chaperones who by the mid-sixties, the annual expenditure for “ rule the girls like Holloway prison warders” . clothing and cosmetics had reached £174 million Respectability ultimately has a class connotation, for the teenage group alone. At the same time 70% he continues “ this contest is no longer degrading, of all girls aged between 15 and 19 left school and because unlike the fifties when it was the sort of only one in a thousand from working class families thing girls o f the so-called lower classes did... attended university. Women are not expected to now we have daughters of some titled people, a “ achieve” anything and even if they want to there number from wealthy families or o f public School are few jobs that offer a real opportunity for education” . promotion or economic security. Right Girls, Right Judges One in a Million There is no question o f “ fixing” the contests, Beauty contests epitomise the traditional female but to get the “ right” girls, you have to get the road to success. For many women entering one is “ right” judges. They must look for more than a like doing the pools — a kind o f magic individual “ busty girl with a sweet face” . Competition is no solution to the “ economic problem” . Mecca’s longer with the girl round the corner, but with the economic problems aren’t centred on subsistence girls in the Sunsilk ad.

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