MISS-OGYNIST UNIVERSITY OF LONDON?

protesters at the Miss LSE event

Last December, beauty pageants were held by student unions at each of the constituent University of London colleges. The plan was then that the winners would advance to the final where the winner would be dubbed “Miss University of London”. The protests against them held by students outside SOAS and LSE catapulted this issue into the national press.

The women’s officer at SOAS, Elly James, and her LSE counterpart, Ruby Buckley, who were both organisers of the ironically named “Miss-Ogynist University of London” campaign, were both interviewed by the national press, and the latter was invited to write an article to outline her case for the Commentisfree section of the Guardian Online.

As I was interested in this issue, I interviewed Ms James for a radio project for a university assignment. Right at the beginning of the interview, she said, “I see them as being Symptomatic of wider sexism in society. She added that we are not in a post feminist age as the contestants had suggested, but in an age where we are experiencing a backlash against feminism and the fragile gains it has made. WOW!

And I agree. In my opinion, we should be progressing towards a society in which women are becoming more and more equal; politically, socially, and economically. I do not agree with some of the contestants who believe that in this supposed age of post-feminism, that events such as these pageants enable the liberation of women.

These pageants are degrading because they objectify women. Rather than seeking to judge a woman by her merits or by the content of her character, it judges them based on criteria such as their breast size. It was this that prompted Ms James to say to a national press journalist: “It’s like a cattle market.”

(And if that is too intellectual for you) At these pageants the contestants were having to put up with sexist abuse from the audience such as shouts of “You whore!” and when one was asked where they would see themselves in the future, one gentleman in the audience kindly suggested, “In a brothel!”

 

Apparently tables were being sold for up to £1000 each. It would be interesting to know where this money is going because it seems that this is another way in which the female contestants are being exploited, as their “labour” is allowing the organisers to make a handsome profit at their expense.

The fact that the national press covered this issue should be seen as a positive. Last year, photographs of the event were published in the Londonpaper, but this year, as well as that, the reporting of the campaigns supporting the pageants sparked a debate about whether they should have taken place or not. Thus many blogs and forums on the internet provided democratic arenas within which to debate this argument.

Despite my being against the pageants on principle, the libertarian streak in me leads me to believe that the contestants should have the individual choice to be able to participate. Ms James however disagrees: “The concept of choice is a very contentious thing because the choice of the individual directly restricts the choice of other people.”

There is a clear gulf between feminists and the rest of the female population. Many women are not conscious of their political identity as women and so feel no connection with feminists. I spoke to many women who on the one hand were appalled by the pageants, but on the other hand, would not have marched with the feminist activists, who they view as being a radical fringe group.

This will make it all the more difficult for feminists to gain the support from the rest of their sisterhood in an era when many people believe that women have achieved equality and that there is no need for this type of politics.