.jpeg)
.png){kind=logo}
Welcome to The Pageant Institute Blogs - Musings of Australia's first Pageant Coach
Popular Posts
PRETTY HURTS - ARE PAGEANTS STILL RELEVANT TODAY?
CAN I HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WHILE COMPETING IN PAGEANTS?
ARE PAGEANTS EXPENSIVE?
PRETTY HURTS - ARE PAGEANTS STILL RELEVANT TODAY?
March 17 2022
Are pageants still relevant today? Is it doing more harm than good? Is it a tradition that needs to be eliminated? What’s with the height restrictions? WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M TOO OLD TO COMPETE???
These are questions that I ask myself every day as a pageant coach and it’s essential that one does so.
Like everything in life, honest self reflection is a must. And by being honest, I mean being brutally honest with yourself. All these questions really come down to one core brutal question: “am I doing the right thing?”
I have always believed that if you cannot justify your relevance, then you become irrelevant. If you don’t serve a purpose, then you are useless. Harsh but fair? I think so.
Not so long ago, a small group of Miss France contestants have joined a feminist group to sue the organisation for discrimination.
I was recently reading up and studying the federal anti discrimination laws under the Anti Discrimination Act and whilst I won’t go through all the details, it makes for some compelling reading. I came out of it thinking “wow pageants are definitely swimming in dangerous waters here”.
If we were truly being honest with ourselves, there are certainly discriminatory elements in a pageant - direct and indirect. You have to be a certain age, in many systems you must be a “born biologically a woman”, you can’t have been married or have had children, you have to be a certain height etc.c If we were being brutally honest, most pageants have the most archaic rules, set by the patriarchy and perpetrated by traditionalists and the conservatives. The reality is. we as a people are changing, and unless we can change, we run the risk of irrelevance. The upside is that with knowledge comes change, and many pageants today are working towards inclusivity, backed by society’s ever changing definition of what “beauty” is. We have many pageants that welcome diversity, that DO allow trans, married women and divorced women to compete.
In a good pageant system, EVERY contestant walks away with something. It may be confidence, a higher self esteem and a better sense of self. They may feel more empowered, have expanded their networks and made meaningful friendships. To completely demonise pageants would be wrong, but to say that there is nothing wrong with the system would be equally farcical.
We can ALWAYS do better.
I don’t have all the answers and we are by no means perfect, but I do welcome the debate. It’s an awesome way to uncover ways of improving the system.
And when the time comes when we can no longer justify our existence to the naysayers, it’s probably a good day to hang our sashes and call it a day.
CAN I HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WHILE COMPETING IN PAGEANTS?
MARCH 17, 2022
Did you know that on average, 98% of relationships with a pageant girl fails? Yup. Read that again. 98 FREAKING PERCENT. Sometimes, those who will cause you the most grief during your pageant tenure are the ones closest to home.
Pay very close attention to me, pageant girl - if you win, you stop being you for a year (sometimes more, depending on your contract) and you become the face of the organisation or your country. Think about it - when you go overseas, the entire time you are competing internationally, no one calls you by your name. You are known simply as AUSTRALIA. When an organisation chooses you, your entire identity belongs to the organisation. They control your movements, your decisions, your schedule. Family and down time will depend on the organisation, not you. Your family will not be able to speak to you or see you as often as they are used to.
This usually can cause some strains with romantic relationships. Your time is no longer your own and your partner will no longer have you to themselves (plus they will need to put up with the attention you will receive from fans, sponsors, directors). They will need to be at peace with the reality that you will be distracted with your campaign, schmoozing with suppliers and sponsors, plus the inevitable crash one goes through once they hand over the crown,
Not all partners can be as understanding and if you find someone who will be willing to put up with this and stay with you for the long term, HOLD ON TO THEM...THEY ARE MORE VALUABLE THAN THE CROWN YOU’RE WORKING SO HARD FOR!
One way of future proofing your relationships is to manage everyone’s expectations. Give them the reality of the situation - the good, the bad and the ugly so that there are no surprises, and if they get upset, they can’t say they weren’t warned by you!
ARE PAGEANTS EXPENSIVE?
MARCH 17, 2022
So what is my position when it comes to entry fees? I AM 100% ALL FOR IT.
As far as I'm concerned, if you can score yourself a competition entry for less than $1k, you should be laughing. I have seen pageant fees in the US that exceeds $5k. We in Australia have been so spoiled having been spared these fees, and now that we are introducing it, these little girls start huffing and puffing threatening to blow your house down.
FACT: Every pageant has an entry fee FACT: It is not compulsory for a national director to cover YOUR entry fee.
I think pageant girls SHOULD be made to pay their own entry fee. Why? Because if they spend their own money, they'll try harder. Far too many girls treat this as a free holiday, and we have a lot of self entitled girls (and some self entitled parents) who think that as a reigning title holder, they need to have everything handed over to them without needing to work for it.
Directors have to spend ridiculous amounts on running a pageant, coaching, preparing their delegate, flights, accommodation and Public Relations that people seem to forget that this kind of investment on their delegate can run close to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And girls complain about their directors being on their backs for not fulfilling their duties as a title holder in a timely manner.
FACT: 99% these same directors will fail to see a return on their investment.
These directors do it because they are passionate and love the glamour of it all. And they love sharing it with others.
Girls...get an education and cut the directors some slack.
And if you don't want to spend that kind of money on a pageant, then maybe find a new hobby.
As far as I'm concerned, if you can score yourself a competition entry for less than $1k, you should be laughing. I have seen pageant fees in the US that exceeds $5k. We in Australia have been so spoiled having been spared these fees, and now that we are introducing it, these little girls start huffing and puffing threatening to blow your house down.
FACT: Every pageant has an entry fee FACT: It is not compulsory for a national director to cover YOUR entry fee.
I think pageant girls SHOULD be made to pay their own entry fee. Why? Because if they spend their own money, they'll try harder. Far too many girls treat this as a free holiday, and we have a lot of self entitled girls (and some self entitled parents) who think that as a reigning title holder, they need to have everything handed over to them without needing to work for it.
Directors have to spend ridiculous amounts on running a pageant, coaching, preparing their delegate, flights, accommodation and Public Relations that people seem to forget that this kind of investment on their delegate can run close to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And girls complain about their directors being on their backs for not fulfilling their duties as a title holder in a timely manner.
FACT: 99% these same directors will fail to see a return on their investment.
These directors do it because they are passionate and love the glamour of it all. And they love sharing it with others.
Girls...get an education and cut the directors some slack.
And if you don't want to spend that kind of money on a pageant, then maybe find a new hobby.