August 12th was International Youth Day. It was a day to celebrate the world’s youth, and review progress made on promises to provide them with education, employment and leadership opportunities around the world. In many African countries, our youth demographic is the largest. Yet they continue to waste away due to a dearth of comprehensive measures to keep them engaged and productive. In spite of the many challenges however, our youth continue to do us proud with their resilience and ingenuity in the face of unspeakable odds.
I am not one to rain on the ‘hustle’ of young people as they like to call it. It is a hard world out there and survival is key. Many ‘hustles’ have paid off and have seen our young people eminently successful in a wide range of areas – academia, technology, entertainment, fashion, agriculture to mention a few. I would however like to focus on one particular hustle that has been around for a long time. It is the world of beauty pageants. In the interest of full disclosure, let me state upfront that I have always disliked beauty pageants. I have always found the idea of a line of young, pretty women strutting across a stage to be judged on subjective standards of beauty quite distasteful. However, I have accepted the fact that it is a way for young women to acquire fame, riches and other opportunities. Some even manage to attract wealthy ‘admirers’ and even a husband. Winning a beauty pageant opens doors, and the attention can be ploughed into other dreams the lucky girl might have. The same way in which I have never understood why two adults would want to box their brains out to the loud cheers of others, I accept that one person’s meat is another person’s poison.
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Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a Gender Specialist, Social Entrepreneur and Writer. She is the Founder of Abovewhispers.com, an online community for women. She can be reached at BAF@abovewhispers.com
20 Responses
Wow!!! Just splendid, absolutely wonderful. Extortion is the order of the day in this present time. The hustle is real, and the ladies contesting just fall prey to this wicked ones. Who cares about education in this country, when the Federal Universities keep going on strike and the staffs are being owed. I have faith and i hope things would get better but he hustle continues..
The level of extortion in pageantry is alarming and I still think the government should interfere in setting these rules so that some men do not find another way if abusing young women
This is quite interesting, I belive the lay down rules can really be effective if the people who are involved in this business can be well informed and educated
All these issues really need to be looked into & a lot of young girls need to work on their self esteem. Because part of the reasons why girls fall into the shady pageant traps is because they have low self-esteem & feel that being a pageant queen will gain them the needed confidence.
I just don’t know how people can insinuate sooo many things about ladies when they are at the hem of affairs
Some ladies are just not sure of their potential.. what they are able to achieve on their own
ladies have to be sure of there potential and they should believe they can go far without men.
getting to understand that ladies should believe and empower them self
Yes ooooooo, Men should also be allowed to participate in beauty pageant. Am tired of Miss this and that. Why can’t there be Mr world too?
It will be an anathema for me not to air my view on this wonderful write up. During my undergraduate days I cry when I see some models because of their attire. Back then models dress very descent and gorgeous but what we see now is nakedness.
Am glad you hit the nail on the head maam. I have seen a manager asking her model whether her gift has been given to her or not? And that continued for months until the innocent girl got angry and rejected the gift wholehearthedly even though she was never given.
Its very good you raise this topic ma. I think this beauty pegeant is part of the opportunities our youths are looking up to. On like sports this beauty pageant should be handle the same way. I am with support with having an association that will look over it for the safety of our youths that have interest in it.
Yes, it is a very good suggestion that the men should also be allowed to engage in beauty pageant. Aslo Will should aslo enuorage other fields and not only beauty.
We are not all beautiful to contest for beauty pageant, but we can also have been talented with others skills that we can contest with. Like miss best writer, give a speech and be awarded for it and so on.
As the writer has said, if there should be an association that supervise the whole thing every other thing will fall in place.
You have said it all ma. The effectiveness is what matters most.
So this is more than just an article for the read, but a call to action. Pagentry should be set right and personally, i don’t like it but then, it can be done right just like the old times.
I just hope the right quarters would be ready to learn something aqdeuately new and flourishing. You guys rock In here!
Great piece.. Pointing out the flaws makes so much sense.. There are still so many areas that need to be addressed.. It is well with our great Nation.
Nice article ma. I remember as a little child, I always dream of becoming a beauty queen after Agbani Darego won the miss world pageant. But now, it’s not encouraging again. The organisers make promises they don’t fulfill, they also make the contestants put on revealing cloths all in the name of designing and fashion. And some girls go extra miles sleeping with some of the organizers so as to get then qualify for contesting. I support your suggestions and rules ma, that beauty pageants should be throughly looked into before being approved.
I wonder if we can contest for other stuff also since not everybody has the beauty to contest for most beautiful girl.
I also support the notion that guys should be allowed to contest for Mr Handsome, Macho man, Mr six packs (lol).