It was kinda weird, as I haven’t really seen much to do with the “Miss Universe” pageant in years, maybe even within the last decade. But there it was....It now grates against so much of what I believe in and value. Apparently it was shown “before an estimated worldwide viewing audience of more than 600 hundred million in over 180 countries”. So more than 600 hundred million people in over 180 countries were subjected to a very distorted view of what a beautiful woman is. I took a look at a few of the different contestants, and you know what, not one of them was wearing glasses, or had stretch marks from bearing a child (thank-you swimsuit category), or could have been bigger than a size 6 (and that was the ‘larger’ women on the show!), or were over the age of 28. And I can only guess at how many of the people watching were young girls or teenagers, who have been given the message that only this is beauty. And it’s a crying shame! We live in a harsh enough culture that we don’t need to narrow down the description of beauty to such a minuscule description (no pun intended!). And I won’t even go into the topic of the young, teenage boys who may have watched the show, and the distorted view they’ll probably get of what a beautiful woman looks like.

[via Estelle]