Imagine seeing a little girl, who just learnt to talk, walk on stage with her beautiful hair curled perfectly, her teeth as white as pearls, and an unimaginable mound of makeup shovelled on her face making her appear to be twice her age. The reaction of most people is, wow she is a very beautiful young girl, but what most people don’t realize is that behind that beautiful little girl is a young child who does not get to live a normal life like the average young girl.

 

There is no going to the park or hanging out with her ‘normal’ friends and playing. Instead, it is long, countless hours of rehearsals and dress fittings, and time spent in a tanning salon to create the perfect golden skin colour not close to the natural beautiful skin they already have. Children beauty pageants should be banned because of the sexualization of young girls, risk of mental and health problems, no time to just be a kid, and the sole factor that these kids are too young to give consent.

 

There are many beauty pageants a year with over three million contestants who sign up to participate. “Toddlers and Tiaras” is a show dedicated to the viewing of child beauty pageants. The show covers the process of getting ready and the performance of the three young girls in the contest. The young individuals were pictured wearing skimpy little outfits including bikinis and short shorts with a crop top shirt, which there is nothing wrong with but exploiting these outfits on these girls is extremely wrong. The show had many viewers every week. These people, including men and child rapists, watching these little girls wearing little or next to nothing dance around the stage and those little girls had near to no choice of being in that situation.

 

These little girls who have barely started developing are competing against each other and it does essentially come down to the genes these girls have got. It simply makes me believe that beauty pageants are a competition for the parents to satisfy their egotistical and twisted minds. Now it is down to the patriarchal need to rate and assess a girl’s looks, but it is time we break this down.

 

It is time we stop exploiting young girls for our own entertainment and there is nothing wrong with a girl wearing makeup and shorts and a crop top, however when a girl has no choice but to do so it becomes an issue we must speak against. A person should be the age of consent before entering and beauty competition as such.