The review of the literature / Introduction:

It is unknown that, actually when the tradition of beauty contests started.

But it is said that, beauty contest started some 70-80 years back in the west.
And in Bangladesh, it has been not recognizing directly branded as beauty
contest, but it has been rebranded as different name in Bangladesh. This is
very similar to any type of beauty contest in the west. But it is very
controversial that, are these types of beauty contests are good for women or
not? And it has remained controversial from its beginning to until now. Many
researches have been conducted and most of them agree that there is
nothing good for women themselves in organizing such contests. Moreover it
has some negative impacts on womenfolk. And now it has become more
dangerous for teenage girls because it has changed the way they used to
think about beauty and thats why it is gaining to get more importance as a
problem for women nowadays.

Background:
To understand this research project and reap the maximum benefits out of it,
a reader should have some background knowledge about the topic
concerned.

A beauty contest, or beauty pageant, is a competition based

mainly on the physical beauty of its contestants, although such contests

often incorporate personality, talent, and answers to judges' questions

as judged criteria. The phrase almost invariably refers only to contests
for women. 1

Research Questions:
1. What are the negative impacts of beauty contest on women?
2. How beauty contest can change the psychology of a woman toward
herself?
3. How beauty contest can hamper the progress of women development?
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4. How can our society get rid of these types of contests?

Hypothesis:
The beauty contests are made by various types of corporate giant to
promote their products specially beauty products and participated by girls.
The basic concept of beauty concept is not that much harmful but what is
actually happening is that, these types of contests indirectly change the
main concept of beauty because these types of contest emphasize on
physical beauty rather than inner talent.

Methodology:
I will take public opinion, especially of young women who are the general
target for beauty contests. I will collect sources from different authors from
the internet and the library. I will take interviews of general people.

Data presentation and Analysis:

Question No. 1: what do you think about beauty contest?

question 1

It is very appriciating
4

I personally dont like it

every person is beautiful in
their own way, so beauty
contest dosnt make any
sence

Introduction: The pie chart shows that the thoughts of people about beauty
contests.
Finding: From the Vie chart we see that, 4 people think it is very
appreciating. 4 people personally dont like it and 7 people think that, every
person is beautiful in their own way, so beauty contest doesnt make any
sense.

Conclusion: maximum of people said women are beautiful in their own way
but in the contrary 4 people think it is very appreciating and rests of them
dont like beauty contests personally.

Question No. 2: Do you think beauty contest decreases social value?

Question 2

10

Yes

No

Introduction: This graph shows that whether beauty contests decreases

social value or not.
Findings: from the graph we get that 10 people out of 15 think that beauty
contests decrease the social value

and another 5 people think it doesnt

decreases the social value.

Conclusion: from my research finding on question 2 it is cleared that most
of the people think beauty contests decreases the social value. If social value
decreases then what happens in our society are given below.
Cultural norms ruined
It increases crimes

 Women are starting to think that this type of beauty is superior. Thats
why most of the girls try to emphasize on being beautiful like standard
of beauty contests such as slim, tall, fair etc.
It increases racism

Question No. 3: Beauty contest organizers emphasize on physical beauty

rather than inner talent.
Strongly Disagree
2-

Disagree
1-

Options
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Neutral
0

Agree
1+

No. of Individuals*points
0*-2
1*-1
0*0
7*1
7*2
Total Individuals=15

Strongly Agree
1.33(Average)

2+

Total points
0
-1
0
7
14
Total average is 1.33

Introduction: This table chart shows that, where the organizers of beauty
contests emphasize on.
Finding: from the table of chart we get that, 1 person disagree with the
sentence. Where 7 people do agree with that and rests of all strongly agree
with that. But the average point is 1.33 which is agreed.
Conclusion: After calculating (I did the calculation like, I gave every
option a weight from -2 to +2 and calculate like above calculation
(total points 20 and total people who did the survey are 15 and I
divided total points/total people).And I got 1.33 as an average. This
is somewhere very near from agree.) So we can say that, it is agreed
that, almost everybody think that organizers of beauty contests deliberately
emphasize on physical beauty rather than inner talent.

Question No. 4: Beauty contest encourage women to diet to the point of

harming themselves.

Strongly Disagree
2-

Options
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Disagree

Neutral

1-

Agree
.4(Av.)

No. of Individuals*points
1*-2
3*-1
2*0
7*1
3*2
Total Individuals=15

Strongly Agree

1+

2+

Total points
0
-1
0
7
14
Total average is .4

Introduction: This table chart shows that, whether beauty contests

encourage women to diet to the point of harming themselves or not.
Finding: From the survey we get that, 1 out of 15 people is strongly
disagreed. 3 out of 15 disagreed. Only 2 people remained neutral. 7 people
agree with the sentence and 3 people strongly agree. And the average score
is .4.
Conclusion: though from the survey we get that everybody thinks neutral
about dieting of girls for being beautiful is not physically harmful. But in
reality women are doing hard diet while ruin their natural beauty. This can
negatively effect on human body in the long run.

Question No.5: do you think these types of contests inappropriate even

immoral?

Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Neutral

1-

2-

Options
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Agree
.53(Av.)

No. of Individuals*points
0*-2
0*-1
8*0
6*1
1*2
Total Individuals=15

Strongly Agree

1+

2+

Total points
0
0
0
6
2
Total average is .53

Introduction: this table chart shows that, what people think about beauty
contest in terms of it is immoral or not.
Finding: From the table chart we get that, 8 people out of 15 think it is not
immoral even not moral, they are neutral. But on the other hand 6 people
think out of 15 that, it is actually immoral and 1 person strongly agree that it
is amoral. The average point is .53 which is near to the agreed. And the
average point is .53.
Conclusion: the average point is .53 which means people are almost agree
that beauty contests are not very moral. So we can say that, people think
these types of contests are immoral.
Why beauty contest is immoral:
The girls who try to get into these types of contests, they think
following western culture is beauty.
7

They are very inefficient at mother language.

Question No.6: Do you support to do plastic surgery for being more

beautiful?

Question 6
15

16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

0
Yes

No

Introduction: this bar chart shows that what people think about plastic
surgery for being more beautiful.
Finding: in the bar chart we can see that 15 out of 15 people dont support
to do plastic surgery to become more beautiful.
Conclusion: every person of my survey list is agreed with that plastic
surgery is bad for health. And in reality many girls in our society are doing
plastic surgery for become more beautiful. Actually by doing that they are
insulting themselves to not accepting how they naturally look.

Question No. 7: Beauty contests have changed the concept of natural

beauty.

Question 7
12

11

10
8
6
4

4
2
0

Yes

No

Introduction: this bar chart shows that what people think about changing the
concepts of beauty by beauty contests.
Finding: Form the graph we find that 11 people out of 15 said yes and only 4
people said no.
Conclusion:

almost every one thinks that these types of beauty contests are

changing the main concepts of beauty. These types of contests make people
understand that, beauty is only physical beauty. Where a girl even can be called
beautiful if she is not tall and slim but her thoughts are beautiful.

Question No. 8: Todays women are more conscious about their outer
beauty rather than inner.

Strongly Disagree
2-

Options
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Disagree
1-

Neutral
0

No. of Individuals*points
3*-2
0*-1
2*0
6*1
4*2
Total Individuals=15

Agree
.8

Strongly Agree

1+

2+

Total points
-6
0
0
6
8
Total average is .8

Introduction: this table chart shows that, whether todays women are more
conscious about their outer beauty rather than inner or not.
Finding: From the survey we get that, 3 out of 15 people strongly disagree
with that. No people disagree with that. Only 2 people out of 15 did not
comment anything means they are neutral about that. 6 people out of 15
agreed that todays women are more conscious about their outer beauty
rather than inner. And 4 people strongly agree with that. And the average
point is .8.

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Conclusion: the average point is .8 which is really close to the agree point.
So, it is cleared that todays women are more conscious about their outer
beauty rather than inner beauty.

Question No. 9: Ordinary girls who watch these types of contests feel lower
self-esteem causing them to feel simply unworthy or ugly.

Strongly Disagree
2-

Options
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Disagree

Neutral

1-

Agree
.33

No. of Individuals*points
0*-2
4*-1
4*0
5*1
2*2
Total Individuals=15

Strongly Agree

1+

2+

Total points
0
-4
0
5
4
Total average is .33

Introduction: this table chart shows that, actually what happens to the girls
who regularly watch these types of TV shows.
Finding: From the survey we get that, no people strongly disagree with the
sentence. Only 4 people out of 15 disagree with that. 4 people still remain
neutral. 5 people out of 15 agree with that. And only 2 people strongly agree
with that. And the average score is .33.

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Conclusion:

the average score is .33 which is very near to the neutral

point. So, people dont think that watching these types of beauty contests
affect any negatively on women psychology or women thoughts about
themselves are not gets low.
Question No. 10: Beauty contests.

Question 10

10

Should be stopped

Should be continued

Should be redesigned

Comment

Introduction: This pie chat shows the opinion of people about stopping the
beauty contests.
Finding: 2 people out of 15 said beauty contests should be continued. 0
people said should be stopped. And 10 people out of 15 said beauty contests
should be redesigned. And 2 people gave their own comment in the
comment box.
Comment 1: It is not to be stopped or not to be continued but think
about the social aspect and emphasize on natural outer beauty and
inner beauty.

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Comment 2: I think beauty contest is an opportunity to show the

external and internal beauty of a woman in her own way.

Conclusion: Most of the people want to redesign the beauty contest.

Summary of Research Finding:

From the primary and secondary research I have found many
negative things about beauty contests.
Inferior complexity:

it usually happens to the ordinary girls who are not

as so called beautiful as the beauty contests girls. They feel low self-esteem
and start to not give themselves enough value. At the long run it effects on
their overall life style and they get sometimes very frustrated and hopeless
about themselves. Low self-esteem is common among woman of any age.
These competitions tend to put a strong focus on appearance rather than
inner beauty. 2
Unrealistic body image: it creates an unrealistic body image for women of
all ages.

At a young age, girls notice the appearance of the pageant

contestants and assume that is how everyone should look. Little do they
know, that the contestants represent a small portion of our society and in no
way reflect an average woman. These young girls will never live up to the
expectations that they assumed was necessary.3
Cultural norms ruined: in many cases it has been found that, the social
value is decreasing for these types of shows which in many ways ruin our
cultural norms. The girls who usually go to these types of contests follow

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western culture in every aspects of their life style. Even sometimes they
cant speak well in Bangla which is big threat to our mother language.
Organizers motivation:

it is clearly open that, the organizers who

organize beauty contests are totally business motivated so, they only
emphasize on outer beauty of a girl rather than inner which is also a big
threat to the womanhood future. Because if women are motivated from their
philosophy, then they will stop practicing inner beauty and will be become
emotionless human.
Respect from men:

if beauty contests keep continue like this men will

start thinking like attractive women are better human than who are not that
much attractive and by this way the ordinary women will loss respect from
men.

Defination of beauty has changed: While beauty contests may be

empowering to the people in them, they have a negative effect on the
people in todays society especially the younger female population. They
think that beauty contests are the definition of beautiful, so they develop
eating habits in order to be as skinny as them (socyberty, 2008) and
sometimes undergo cosmetic surgery in order to fix something they dont
like about themselves.6
Losing inner talent: form the survey it was clearly shown that todays girls
are not practicing their inner talent moreover they are only busy in sharing
their outer beauty which indicates a dark future ahead for women. Because if
they keep doing it then they will lose their inner talent and will be become
dependable on men.
Hurting themselves: The beauty contests are really getting harmful in
terms of hurting their own body by various kinds of ways. First of all dieting.
Dieting is good at a certain level but todays women are doing diet very
harshly to get slim looking body which makes them weak and at the long run
many kinds of chronic diseases can be occurred. And the second way of
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hurting themselves is plastic surgery. Though In my survey every girl

responded negatively about that but in reality many girls are doing this kind
of surgery and destroy their natural beauty also sometimes it can be very
lethal.
All Beauty Pagents show skinny women with perfect bodies. With all the
perfect curves and absolutely no fat. It makes women want to compete
against each other. It makes them fight to see who can be the skinniest. "
But, eventually they turn out to be so thin that a person can see every bone
in their body. Your body needs the nutrients that it gets from food. If you
don't eat and make yourself throw up what you do eat the you aren't getting
the nutrients. When your body doesn't have nutrients to survive off of your
body dies. Your hair starts to fall out. Your teeth break. Your bones
deteriorate until you are dead. So please, of you be a model don't give up
your life to be pretty. Because in the end you are uglier than you started off...
You are dead.4

Women development: todays a lot of girls only emphasize on their beauty

but they cannot contribute to the society properly which stops the progress
of women development. These perceptions of what is attractive to the world
are very dangerous to the world's young female population. When girl sees
the praise that a beauty queen receives for her ideal looks, it can cause
harmful effects to the emotional and physical well being of a girl. A girl might
feel she needs to go to extremes in order to achieve a socially desired look.
Anorexia, bulimia, and lowered self-esteem may result from these attempts
at a society-deemed perfection.8
Relationship: even the personal relationship is getting very unstable. Men
in fact see women as castrated men, as injured and grotesque. Therefore,
they have two ways in which to deal with this frightening prospect; one is to
see them as the same (as men), and that they are injured because they are
being punished, or they can choose to look at women as other and turn some
other aspect of their body5
Creating Contests in every section: These kinds of contests inspire
contests in every section of life. Girls dont like to help others because these

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types of tendency have grown from beauty contests. In a long run even
ethics wont exist.

Recommendations:
Beauty contests have to be redesigned where emphasize on inner
beauty rather than outer beauty.
Not only for female but the contest could be for anybody which will
decreases gender discrimination.
When the contest will be for both genders on a same stage the outer
beauty thing will be totally stopped automatically because the
physical features of men and women are not same.

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 If the physical beauty contest stops then automatically organizers will

emphasize on human noble virtues. And the noble works will be
encouraged. The contests will be like who is better human being. Such
as a person teaches children without any cost can be a winner!!
We should have cultivated this culture from the beginning of our
civilization, but we still can make the thing better if we start
redesigned our own mind first.
We should stop criticizing bad looking (so called) girls and should not
make any differences.
To make our children beautiful mentally who will understand the inner
beauty should be the first priority we should include these kinds of
topic to their text books or even a subject which will teach children the
ethics can be added from the primary level of education.
To increase the social value all types of unethical contest should be
prohibited.
One of the main reasons to organize beauty contest is Marketing.
Actually beauty contest kind of TV shows is made for next level of
marketing strategy to sell goods. So, we should stop focusing physical
beauty of a girl while marketing because it also encourages the
importance of these types of beauty contests.
A course which includes medical analysis of body can be added to
university level to understand better dieting factor in human body
which will also help to understand the bad effect of doing plastic
surgery.

Conclusion:

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Finally it can be said that, beauty contests not only hurting physically but
also socially. The impacts of beauty contests are so vast that the every
aspect of our life is getting negatively affected by that. We, the human being
are totally driven by our own culture, even our thinking process is controlled
by our culture and this culture in getting ruined by these types of beauty
contests. Youngr people are easy victims of the mass media, which promot
the idea of a super slim body. Some peoples solutions are to not pay
attention to the media, but thats hard to do when its everywhere you look.
Itsnot easy to just let them die. Something has to change! Real beauty
should be perceived as a personality, the self confidence and strength that
one has. True beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You is what makes you, it
shows who you are, and thats the only thing that makes you unique.7 to
our rich culture but also it is a threat of our existence.

References:

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Beauty contest.Retrieved from

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Beauty_contest.htm
l.

(2008)Long Term Effects on Woman.Retrieved from

https://sites.google.com/site/negativesonbeautypageants/negative-effectson-women.
Jessica.(2010). The Negative Effects of Beauty Pageants on Society. Miss
America, Retrieved from
http://missamericapageant.blogspot.com/2010/11/negative-effects-ofbeauty-pageants-on.html

Brianna M. Are beauty contests harmful to women? Retrieved from

http://www.debate.org/opinions/are-beauty-contests-harmful-to-women

Alice stead.(2005). When beauty becomes ugly. Retrieved from

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/courses/beauty/web4/astead.html

Fateforevermore.(2010). Do Beauty Pageants Serve a Purpose in Today's Sociey?.

Studymode, Retrieve from http://www.studymode.com/essays/Do-BeautyPageants-Serve-a-Purpose-370847.html
Mayra. Ugly side of beauty. From http://www.admissionhook.com/essay_TheUgly-Side-Of-Beauty_903_547.html
Jeffrey Bartell.(2005). Beauty Should Never Be A Contest. Gather, Retrieve
from http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976715185

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