10. Celebrity Skin – Hole 1998
Oh, look at my face
My name is might have been
My name is never was
My name's forgotten
Why did our mothers bother burning their bras if they were
then going to tell their daughters that ‘It’s different for boys’? (see Post 4)
I guess social change is a slow
ship to turn around, but my mum was a teenager in the 1960’s and still carries
on about the huge social changes that occurred during this decade. Social
change for the better. But about ten years later, she whose generation burnt
bras told her daughters that ‘It’s different for boys’.
The ‘beauty’ of the bra-burning demonstration
of 1969 was that it was very deliberately staged outside the Miss America
pageant. The demonstrators stated that the pageant promoted women who are young, juicy, and
malleable, then discarded them a year later as a new winner is announced. Other
reasoning’s for the demonstration likened the Miss America pageant to a metaphor
for livestock shows where the animals are judged for teeth, hair and grooming. Yet
another was an objection to the focus on a women's body over her brain, on youth
rather than maturity, and on commercialism rather than humanity.
If I had of been around at the time,
I dare say I would have ‘burned my bra’. That said, I’m a horse rider and therefore
put significant value in a supportive bra. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t have
burned my bra.
Back to beauty pageants.
I have a good friend in Papua New
Guinea (PNG) who is well educated, smart, highly successful professionally, and
‘Oh my God! A woman!’. With her career
going great guns, I was surprised to hear that she was contemplating entering
the Miss PNG contest. However, even though PNG is Australia’s closest neighbour,
there is a world of cultural difference between the country of my birth and the
country of my friend’s birth. While I think the average Aussie is probably better
socially aligned with the American situation when it comes to beauty pageants, for
our neighbours to the north Miss PNG is a highly esteemed role model to young
women and the broader community. Miss PNG is seen more as an acknowledgement of
what a women could be, rather than what she is limited to.
Australia or Papua New Guinea, unfortunately
both countries appear to judge men by who or what they are - their actions, while women are judged by their
appearance and what they could be.
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