Here She Is: The Tarnished Reign of the Beauty Pageant in America

An exploration of American feminism through the history and legacy of beauty pageants that offers a new perspective on their empowering and controversial role.

In 2020, the Miss America pageant will celebrate its 100th anniversary despite its very controversial standing in feminist history. What accounts for the persistence of this American tradition? Friedman approaches the issue from her unique perspective as a scholar, National Organization of Women state president, sometimes pageant judge, and the daughter Miss America 1970.

People have long assumed that pageants propagate damaging and unrealistic expectations for women, including increasingly thin bodies and Barbie-style features. Friedman draws on her own research to assess the development of beauty pageants in America from their origins as P.T. Barnum spectacles in a post-Seneca Falls world to extremely popular bathing-beauty competitions in Trump’s Miss USA contest, and into the more talent and achievement-based competitions of today. She demonstrates that forms of pageantry have morphed everywhere in our culture, from The Bachelor and RuPaul’s Drag Race to sorority rush and quinceañeras.

While acknowledging and exploring the strong critiques of the pageant world, including the Jon Benet Ramsey-style junior competitions, Friedman also arrives at some important counterintuitive discoveries and surprising conclusions about the positive aspects including visibility and confidence building, training that has been used to run for public office and to lead in business. Pageants are a useful window into the changing nature of American femininity, politics, and even parenthood. Friedman’s analysis makes for insightful reading.

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