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Below: A July 2011 A Current Affair segment treating the Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant before its arrival in Australia. Channel Nine later paid for exclusive rights to televise the pageant. Below: A series of videos from 2007 of young contestants being prepared for beauty pageants. In accompanying notes, the maker of the video says she made it to show that the contestants do not really enjoy the experience. (This clip should be treated as comment / opinion.) Below: Young competitors taking part in a Toddlers & Tiaras season finale. This includes Eden Wood performing and an interview with her mother, Mickie Wood. Below: Competitors preparing for and taking part in the Tiny Miss USA pageant. Below: An advertisement seeking Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant contestants. > Below: Eden Wood performing Cutie Patootie, before being questioned by a panel. |
 Web links, documents |
The Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant home page can be found at http://www.universalroyalty.com/
The site includes photographs of current winners, a schedule of upcoming pageants, and promotions for modelling and make-up lessons and photograph retouching.
Collective Shout is a lobby group which targets corporations, advertisers, marketers and media which objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services.
They have supported Pull the Pin on Beauty Pageants (another protest and lobby group) in opposing the Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant staged recently in Melbourne.
Collective Shout's home page details the group's opposition to child beauty pageants and includes a lengthy comment from Collett Smart, a child and adolescent psychotherapist and a member of Collective Shout, who has publicly condemned these contests. You may need to scroll down the page to find Smart's comments.
Collective Shout's home page can be found at http://collectiveshout.org/
The online opinion site, Squidoo, includes a set or arguments for and against child beauty pageants. These arguments can be found at http://www.squidoo.com/child-beauty-pageants-pros-and-cons
On September 13, 1998, The New York Times published an analysis of child beauty pageants titled, 'Tough Times on the Children's Pageant Circuit'. The analysis looks at the shift in popular opinion against child beauty pageants in part prompted by the murder in 1996 of child beauty pageant competitor JonBenet Ramsay.
The full text of this analysis can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/13/style/tough-times-on-the-children-s-pageant-circuit.html
On February 20, 2007, The Washington Post released a detailed report on the findings of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Among the report's findings was the potential adverse effect of participation in child beauty pageants. The full text of The Washington Post article titled, 'Goodbye to Girlhood' can be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021602263.html
On January 27, 2009, the online parenting advice site, Today Parenting, included an article titled, 'Parents defend putting their kids in beauty pageants'. Though the article adopts a neutral stance, it presents in detail the views of parents who believe that beauty pageant participation has benefited their children.
The full text can be found at http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28873086/ns/today-parenting/t/parents-defend-putting-their-kids-beauty-pageants/
On May 24, the ABC released a news report on the spread of anti child beauty pageant protests to Perth, spearheaded by the lobby group, Pull the Pin on Child Beauty Pageants. The full text of the report can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/05/24/3225857.htm
On May 25, 2011, The Sydney Morning Herald published a news report detailing the growing opposition to the staging of a Universal Royalty Beauty pageant in Melbourne. The report is titled, 'Parents protest over "toxic" pageants'. The full text of the report can be found at http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/parents-protest-over-toxic-pageants-20110524-1f2jh.html
On July 29, 2011, Nine MSN carried a report titled, 'US beauty pageant hits Melbourne'. The report includes details of the Victorian government having asked the child safety commissioner to attend the Melbourne pageant. It also includes a series of photographs of child pageant star, Eden Woods, and a link to a Channel Nine news video report on both the pageants and Eden Woods.
This information can be found at http://news.ninemsn.com.au/glanceview/180443/us-child-pageant-hits-melbourne.glance
On August 4, 2011, the ABC's opinion site, The Drum, published a comment by Brendan O'Neill titled, 'Well done, pageant-haters'. O'Neill argues that opposition to child beauty pageants exaggerates the harm they can do, ignores the general sexualisation of women and children in our society and is motivated by class prejudice against those who typically enrol their children in pageants.
O'Neill's opinion can be found in full at http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2824460.html