On socializing child beauty queens
Sociological Images recently posted a video from Toddlers and Tiara’s, a show about kiddie beauty pageants (read: child abuse pageants) that perfectly demonstrates the message being sent to young girls: not only is it your duty in life to be beautiful and put yourself on display, but pain is also something you must deal with in order to attain that kind of beauty.
It’s one thing to teach your daughter about overcoming obstacles, but to teach her to loathe her natural appearance and put herself through painful procedures to “fix” it is another thing entirely. What’s worse is that this mother is not just encouraging her daughter to wax her eyebrows at an extremely young age, but also criticizing her and telling her that she looks much better without all that hair on her face, as if it was even noticeable to begin with. Even if she did have particularly bushy eyebrows, that really shouldn’t be a huge concern for such a young girl.
