3 beauty pageants with a difference

Those who mock beauty queens for being bimbos discount the enormous influence these women often wield with their own original voices. Point in case: Anastasia Lin, Miss World Canada, was recently stopped from entering China for the finals pageant for statements she’s made against human rights violations by the Chinese government. She had a platform and she was not afraid to use it.

Three very different beauty pageants, in Israel, Brazil and America, aim to give the same advantage to women from three minority groups: holocaust survivors, prison inmates and the disabled. These pageants have their critics, those who believe they objectify or patronise the contestants. But it’s hard to see anything but joy on the faces of these women as they take the stage. If anything, it seems condescending to speak with chagrin on their behalf. Amid the tiaras, sashes and confetti, they look more like winners than victims.

Flip through to read about three unique beauty pageants 

Photograph: Michelle Groskopf

Miss Holocaust Survivor

The contestants, in their 70s and 80s, were all children or teenagers trapped in ghettos or concentration camps under Nazi rule. The third edition of Miss Holocaust Survivor was held on November 24, 2015 and the winner was 83-year-old Rita Berkowitz, who escaped Romania and arrived in Israel in 1951. According to a municipal psychiatrist, the pageant helps those like Berkowitz who ”were stripped of their childhood or adolescence. The evening gives them a chance to transcend their trauma and have fun.”

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Photograph: Reuters

Miss Amazing

An American pageant for young women with disabilities, the finals of Miss Amazing is held alongside the Special Olympics every year. Winners from 30 states across the country participate in the finale, held in July in 2015, and the aim is to allow them to showcase their “multi-faceted identities and valuable abilities and strengths”. Tiffani Johnson, a 22-year-old with Downs Syndrome who represents Iowa, said of the moment she got crowned, “I felt amazing. I felt LOVED!"

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Photograph: Michelle Groskopf

Miss Talavera Bruce

Talavera Bruce is a maximum-security prison for women in Rio de Janeiro and home to those convicted of drug trafficking, prostitution and other serious crimes. The pageant, organised by local churches and community groups, serves to bolster the self-esteem of the inmates. Miss Talavera Bruce 2016, crowned on November 24, 2015, is the 27-year-old Michelle Neri Rangel, who is serving 39 years for robbery. She said to Agencia EFE, “I learned to feel like a woman in prison.”

Photograph: Agencia EFE