Considering Beauty Pageants (with Hilary Levey Friedman)
We spoke with Hilary Levey Friedman, author of Here She Is:The Complicated Reign of the Beauty Pageant in America. We discuss the relationship between pageants and feminism, the parallels between beauty pageants and the Bachelor franchise, and the power of the gaze.
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Beth: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, thank you for joining us for this episode of The Nuanced Life. Today, we're going to do something a little different and share a conversation with you with professor Hilary Levey Friedman. Professor Friedman is a sociologist and expert on beauty pageants, childhood, and parenting, competitive afterschool activities and popular culture.
She teaches at Brown University. She has degrees from Harvard, Princeton and the university of Cambridge. And we talked to dr. Friedman about her book, Here She Is: the Complicated Reign of the Beauty Pageant in America, which uses beauty pageants to trace the arc of [00:01:00] American feminism from the 1840s to the present.
It's a great read. It's a great conversation. And here she is to discuss it with you. Well, we are so excited to have you here at Hilary. Will you start off just by setting the scene as you do in the book for our listeners, what compelled you from an academic perspective to write a book about pageants?
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:01:23] Well, really, I would say the motivation was initially more personal. So I have never competed in a beauty pageant, but my mother is a former Miss America. So she was Miss America, 1970. And especially for those of you in Kentucky, she crowned Phyllis George. So that's sort of one way to place her historically.
Uh, so I grew up around pageants, never competed, went off to college, discovered sociology discovered that I loved studying competition and childhood, and I've always really been focused on women's issues. So yeah. Eventually, it seemed like a natural fit, but I will say too, that I had a [00:02:00] student in fall 2015 in a seminar I taught at Brown, and she became miss America 2018. So when that happened, I was there when she was crowned in Atlantic City. I was like, okay, the universe is telling me, I must do this book.
Beth: [00:02:15] It's interesting how you talked about understanding from an early age that your mom was beautiful and you were smart. I had to, when I read that, I had to tell you that when I was in second grade a boy looked at me in the hallway and just very matter of factly told me that I would be really pretty if I weren't so smart. And I just, when I read that in your book, I thought, wow, like we all just have such an internalization of kind of you slot into one role or another.
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:02:42] Yeah, for me, it's been interesting because it's transformed over the years that I definitely no longer see beauty and brains as mutually exclusive, even though I know some people do. And when I come across those people, I'm also like, well, you're just probably not my people if you don't like that, I usually have my [00:03:00] hair done or my nails done, or any of those sorts of things.
But, um, you know, it's not just about ultra feminine things that people can do that makes someone beautiful but for me, it was sort of the opposite that beauty with something to be embraced or like put on a pedestal and maybe being smart wasn't so much. Um, so that has definitely transformed for me over time.
So when I say like, my mom was the beauty and I was the brains, I don't, I didn't even mean that as like a compliment to myself,
Sarah: [00:03:31] The brains and beauty issue is, is never a problem for men. They are allowed to be both handsome and smart, and nobody seems to question that.
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:03:40] And it's super celebrated.
Sarah: [00:03:42] Right, exactly. I have always been fascinated by beauty pageants. I never participated them in them myself, but I do think that they, in the same way that our treatment of royalty or a celebrity, which I guess [00:04:00] they're sort of a weird intersection of our ways that we exercise our values about gender or beauty or power.
And as a sociologist, tell us about where you see that most clearly like where you see that exercising of values that we have as we watch beauty pageants? Either you know, sort of as they've progressed or in certain very controversial moments throughout the pageants history, vanessa Williams comes to mind, but I'm interested to hear your take on how it becomes this platform on which we perform our values or ideas.
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:04:39] Well, when Miss America started in 1921, it wasn't called miss America then, it was by the end of the decade. But when you call yourself something after the country, right, Miss America, uh, you're laying claim to sort of representing the nation in some way. Um, and later on when the song There She [00:05:00] Is, comes out, uh, in the 1950s, they're literally saying there she is, your ideal.
So in many ways it's not just a projection. It's like Miss America was laying claim to saying, this is what ideal young, uh, an ideal young American woman should look like. Now at that time, that meant she was white. That meant she was, um, presumably heterosexual. Um, that meant almost always that she was Christian too.
So there was, you know, and that she was thin and her body, you know, did all the things that people know, quote unquote, normally expect bodies to do. So I think there's that very real component. And then I think there's also the component to Miss America in particular, where as they started to move away from that, right like okay, well, now we want you to go to school and get a scholarship. Now we want you to do perform a talent. Now we want you to have some community service thing that you really [00:06:00] care about. All of these things kept being added on to the Miss America program. Right? Which really truly mirrors, um, the expectations that we put on women, like increasing expectations.
So yes, girls, we want you to achieve in the classroom, but do it with a smile.
Beth: [00:06:16] So you tie the evolution of pageants, very explicitly to the waves of feminism in the book. Can you just walk our listeners through that evolution at a high level?
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:06:28] Yeah. So there are definitely three waves of feminism that are recognized.
Sometimes there's a forth. Some people would say we're in a fourth wave now and not the third wave, but the first wave of feminism really started with Seneca Falls in 1848 and culminated in the passage of the 19th amendment ratification in 1920. Then we move into the second phase. So that's like women were out there, they were able to vote, but there were still many doors close to them, both in terms of education and in terms of [00:07:00] professional and career opportunities.
So the, so the second wave of feminism was really about opening those doors and making sure women had access. So many people see this protest that occurred right outside the Miss America pageant in 1968 as one of the sort of foundational, public events that brought the women's rights movement, um, to the public's attention.
Now, some people think in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of identity politics, that that was part of the third wave. I argue that the moment we have been in and are currently in really is the third wave of feminism. You can point to the women's March as this very public expression. I think there's roughly like 50 year cycles between them.
Um, and I would say that this third wave of feminism is saying, sure women are out there in the public, and now they're getting educations oftentimes in greater numbers than men and they're working professionally, but have we made those safe spaces safe for women? So I think that's where we get um, the movements around sexual harassment, um, obviously sexual [00:08:00] assault, but, but like making the workplace safe for women, women has been one of the major goals of this third wave of feminism.
And of course, Gretchen Carlson who sued Roger Ailes, um, uh, Fox news, she was miss America in 1989. So I can really draw these very strong, uh, pageant and Miss America links to all of these, um, major occurrences in American feminism.
Sarah: [00:08:23] So the question though, is, is it furthering the goals of feminism or is it holding them back?
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:08:28] Well, it's both. It's, it's, it's different at different times. You know, I say when miss America started in 1921, it was like unabashedly about commercializing women's bodies. Now you could make the argument that the women who chose to be out there in their bathing suits at the time, You know, we think they're very covered up, but they weren't very covered up.
They were gasped, like showing their knees, um, that they were putting themselves out there in a very public way. Uh, but really like they were seen as Oostra. And, um, it was men who started the miss America [00:09:00] pageant so that they would make more money by extending the season down on the Jersey shore.
I think that in particular, the notion that in the 1940s women would have access to a college scholarship when so few women, um, who were age eligible were going to college at the time, I think that in particular really did advance, um, women's opportunities. So, you know, miss America is a hundred year history. Miss USA has like an 80 year history. There's many other pageants.
So, you know, it's not always one or the other at a particular moment in time.
Sarah: [00:09:37] I think what's so hard. I've been having this ongoing conversation with a listener, because we had a conversation on our show about sexy Halloween costumes and how neither of us particularly cared for them. And I think we use the word slutty on the show.
She reached out because she has experience with pole dancing and the pole dancing community and felt like it was very derogatory. And it's, you [00:10:00] know, we've had this, this conversation that just keeps going and I think what I've tried to articulate to her, and I don't know how successfully, but I think is really relevant here is, there are the feminist arguments and there are the arguments about the individuals participating in the pageant and whether or not they were exploited or whether or not they were empowered or whether or not the college scholarships, um, really changed their life.
And I think, you know, I think you're right. I think the argument that they were empowered and have had, were given additional resources is incredibly convincing. To me, what miss America does and, and pageants do and, you know, and I think you can extrapolate this to celebrity culture and you know what her and I were talking about in different areas with strippers or sex work.
I mean, you can take it all the way out is the power of the gaze, right? It's when you, and the way you look is on a stage for someone else to take in, when you are the product in a way. And that's the tension for me, that's [00:11:00] so difficult to hold because I'm not sure there's a, whatever the impact on the individuals, I just think that exchange elevated the way that it is with pageants.
And again, I think you could make this argument in lots of spaces, not just pageants is I, I'm not sure I can see that that exchange between I'm here for you to look at me, that exchange happen in a healthy way. Am I just being too reductive? Is that, is, is there a way for that to happen in a way that's not just healthy for the individual, which I think is a little bit easier, easier place to get to, but healthy for our society.?
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:11:34] If you could see me, I'm like shaking my head vigorously to so many things you're saying. So three different things.
One, I think you're absolutely right that identifying a distinction between what the choices individuals make and then sort of the societal structures and institutions that might be shaping those choices, those are two very different things. And that was actually an issue in second wave feminism, where it was seen as women were [00:12:00] critiquing and criticizing other women, um, and less the structures.
And so you see in third wave feminism sort of a move away from that, um, you might make the decision that's right for you individually, but we can still sort of. Um, interrogate and, you know, critique the patriarchy for lack of a better word. Um, so there's that for sure.
The second thing is, um, something very interesting happened. I mentioned Gretchen Carlson before. So she came in to take over the miss America pageant after in the wake of the Me Too scandal after email's surfaced, uh, by the, Kurt who was at the time, the male CEO of miss America, fat shaming, and slut-shaming former miss Americas. So Gretchen Carlson comes in and one of the biggest things she does and pretty quickly is she gets rid of the swimsuit competition.
And, you know, that was one of the major, um, feminist critiques of miss America or, and also like, if it's really about a scholarship, why do you need to [00:13:00] wear a bikini and six inch heels in order to get it? So there was a really interesting response by many of the women who had competed um, and they would put up a picture of themselves in their bathing suit.
There was especially an incident where uh, scholarship donor said, you know, intelligent women don't have to parade around in a bathing suit. And so these women really took issue and they would sign their names and make a comment and then like list all the degrees after their name. So it was like, well, I'm clearly a smart woman. And like I walked around in a bathing suit.
So I think that captures a lot of the tension that you're talking about. And I think part of it is. Um, who is in, on the, who is in, on the joke, right? Like I don't think the women are cultural dupes. I don't, I don't think that at all. Um, I think they're making choices that are right for them.
But the reality is that beauty pageants are not about blowing up the system. If [00:14:00] anything, they're about figuring out how the system works, like the existing system, and maybe changing it from within, or just figuring out how to succeed within that system. The last thing I want to say about this is, um, you know, I feel like you could be talking about the bachelor, um, which I often say is like the new version of miss America. It's like the 20th Century Miss America.
Sarah: [00:14:20] True, yeah.
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:14:23] I mean, down to the fact Chris Harrison hosted miss America for many years, but also like there's almost always, especially in the early episodes where their bikinis, there's usually some sort of quote, unquote talent competition on the group dates. Like the Rose ceremony has been-
Sarah: [00:14:37] I feel like I'm seeing the matrix.
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:14:40] Yeah. But it's super interesting because the bachelor has the bachelorette, which is very much in the news these days. And in fact, it was so interesting cause I'm watching the current season. I watched many of the seasons, but I'm watching the current season that started out with Claire.
And there was this one, um, you know, [00:15:00] really kind of quote unquote talent competition that the guys did, which was a Dodge ball game, but it was strip Dodge ball. And one of them them was like, if, if you were doing this to a woman, this would be totally unacceptable and I feel objectified. And so it's just so interesting because the bachelor and the bachelorette give us a chance to compare really like how men and women are being treated as objects, or just based on how they look.
So I do see some hope isn't the right word, things are changing, um, in terms of like, yeah, like some men are objectified as well and you know, when you, when you mentioned celebrity culture, like of course, like how you look matters and even political culture, right?
Like, um, Chris Christie was so, you know, uh, crucified when he, the pictures of him on the beach surface, not just for his actions, but also how we looked. And I can point to lots of other men like that. So, um, you know, I think the reality is, looks matter both for men and women, but historically they've mattered [00:16:00] much, much more for women.
Sarah: [00:16:01] Well, and I think this listener's point, which I take, and I think is hard is how do you create the system without heaping more shame on the women participating in it? And I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that for pageant participants. I don't want to do that for strippers. I don't want to do that for models.
I don't want to do that for the bachelorette. Like I'm not here to shame anyone for their choices and that's that second wave. I think you're right. I think second wave feminism really struggled with that, but I think, you know, for me, It's that tension between how things are and how we want them to be.
I'm not sure I see a space where there is a healthy way for both the person being gazed at and the person doing the gazing, where there's no opportunity for exploitation or there's no opportunity for even just sort of mental health challenges or, you know, whatever, whatever that, that gaze situation, when we're in that, what that does.
Like, I don't know if I see a healthy way for that to come about. Maybe [00:17:00] my vision is limited for sure, but you know, that's to me cause I get where we're at. I understand that people are to participate in this system for lots of reasons. And I do not want to ever heat more shame on them because they have enough, but like I also don't want to lose sight of like, this is not where we want to be.
And if we don't think there's a place to get to, that's healthy for everybody to participate in, then well, then we need to acknowledge that and talk about that too. And it's really, it's a hard, you know, listen second wave feminism sure as heck didn't get that tension. Right. It's hard. And I wonder, I do see some of that progress in the pageant system where there they're working that, that tension out. I even think of, Oh, what was the Netflix movie?
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:17:40] Insatiable
Sarah: [00:17:41] No.
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:17:41] Oh, Oh, Dumplin'?
Sarah: [00:17:43] Dumplin'. Where they're really trying, they like trying to work this out, like, well, can I take the gaze and draw something healthy and powerful from it?
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:17:53] So I think first of all, What I think was most problematic about miss America in [00:18:00] particular, in like the 1950, 60s,70's is, you know, women really did use it as a tool for social, but that's because they didn't have other pathways to power.
Right. You see that change so much, 1972, title nine, all of that. But, you know, I think that. For some people, this is the right choice. Right. And for some people it's not, but for those people who it's not for when they didn't have other opportunities to advance themselves. And it's like the same way that I say, um, you know, I think we criticize people who watch the Real Housewives series, you know, I'm one of them who watches the Real Housewives series, but it's like, cause it's fun.
And like, it's not that complicated and I shouldn't have to explain it and it gives me pleasure and isn't pleasure, like an okay thing. So I think there's some aspect of that too, where it's like, well, that's not what I enjoy, but by the same token, like I don't enjoy seeing grown men, like hit themselves and risk head injuries and like these gruesome leg [00:19:00] injuries on the NFL.
Um, and certainly. They are like very, very, very well compensated, but there are definitely aspects about the gaze and the body and what it does and how it's like, how we look at it. Um,
so opportunities for exploitation and abuse there too.
Exactly. But we just don't talk about that as much for the men, right? Like, So I, and I do think there's one difference that I want to point out when we're talking about sports. I can think about like Michael Phelps in the Olympics, you know, you'd see like his name show the pictures of his abs all the time. There's, there's lots of examples like that, but they're, they're also being celebrated for something that their bodies do.
And so I think when it's like, Oh, just look pretty and don't talk, right? Like, it's really just how you look and nothing else. And so that. It's much harder to make sense of then saying, okay, there's also all these other things that you do.
Beth: [00:19:55] I've been listening to you um, the two of you talk about the, [00:20:00] the gaze and the person who's being gazed upon. I want to ask you about the person who profits from that dynamic and how you have thought about having a president of the United States who has owned a pageant.
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:20:14] So Miss America is a nonprofit. Miss USA is for-profit and Miss USA works. They actually have franchises so States and often, um, people run multiple States because they get the franchise to run it.
And it's interesting because of course, Donald Trump was associated with Atlantic city for a long time, because he had several casinos there. And so in the 1980s, actually, he was interested in buying miss America. He went and judged one year, um, in 1989, the year Gretchen Carlson gave up her title. And when he found out that it was a nonprofit, he was like, Oh, this is not for me.
And so in, later in the nineties, after he married Marla Maples who had previous pageant experience herself, so this was sort of [00:21:00] a way to bring her into like Trump Inc, that the fact that miss USA was not just for profit, but also not confused in the same way as Miss America about what it was. It was like, and still to this day, miss USA is about like how you look in a bathing suit and how you look in your evening gown.
And yes, like you should be able to speak articulately a bit as well but at the end of the day, it's truly a beauty pageant. So I think that in the same way I say, Oh, some people dismiss those who watch the Real Housewives. Some people dismiss Donald Trump in 2015, partly because of his ownership of Miss Universe, which owns miss USA, partly because of the Apprentice and for lots of other reasons.
But I think again, if we dismiss these things that so many people enjoy and take pleasure from, we are then overlooking, um, some important parts of American culture that might tell us something about how the country is working. So, um, obviously he did not win [00:22:00] reelection and I think the pageant stuff has not been as prominent for the past few years, but the fact that he owned Miss Universe was part of the first debate with Hillary Clinton.
That's when she brought up this Miss Universe that he had fat shamed and, you know, called miss housekeeping, um, really derogatory things. And then the way he treated women who competed at his pageants, especially miss teen USA, they were all under age and he would walk backstage and say, I'm inspecting them. And, uh, it's my right to do that as the owner.
I mean, he really fulfilled all of the terrible stereotypes that you could say about men who are around beauty pageants. I mean, I find in my research that the pageants duty pageant world is like the vast majority of people are women, but Donald Trump again, is just going to be this figure that looms large and is going to shape a lot of people's views.
Sarah: [00:22:57] So as we wrap up, what do you see as the future of beauty [00:23:00] pageants?
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:23:00] So I don't think beauty pageants are going away because I think pageant culture is very much with us. So whether that's the Bachelor or other reality TV shows or these particular pageants, I, you know, I think there are enough people who want to stick with them and have volunteered or the tradition that they will continue.
Now, do I think that they're always going to be on TV? That I'm not sure about at all. I mean, just our, the way we consume culture has changed so much. It's hard to get excited about a two or three hour show that comes on once a year.
So I think that's going to be something that, that all the pageants have to think about. And I think if we're, you know, miss American particular, where they're trying to move to this, they give Ted speeches, Ted talks, you know, the current miss America did a science experiment on stage for her talent. Um, it's not that those things aren't worthwhile, but are they entertainment?
You know, it's like, I think the people who win the road scholarships, that's super important every [00:24:00] year but do most people want to watch the intro, the roads interviews, like most people don't want to do that. Right. But like, there's no doubt it's important to the people who do it and it matters, but it's not on Netflix. It's not on network TV.
Beth: [00:24:13] Well, thank you so much for joining us. It's a really interesting read and I appreciate you spending time with us to talk about it.
Hilary Levey Friedman: [00:24:19] Thank you so much for having me.
Beth: [00:24:22] Thank you so much to Professor Friedman for joining us. Thanks to all of you for spending time with us today. We'll be back in your ears on Pantsuit Politics on Friday and Tuesday, and back here with your commemorations and advice questions next Wednesday. Until then keep it nuanced, y'all.