Child Beauty Pageants

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by shorty_37, Apr 17, 2008.

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Do you think child pageants like these sexualize children?

Poll closed Apr 27, 2008.
  1. Yes I do

    88.0%
  2. No I don't

    12.0%
  1. Kadark Banned Banned

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    Well then, we're back to square one, arguing about the status of children pressured into sacrificing their childhood to engage themselves within shallow competitions. You specifically said, "All this talk makes me wonder how people view women in beauty contests" and I gave you my answer. You don't like it? Too bad. That's the public's perception, and with damn good reason.
     
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  3. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Same public who pay through the nose for makeovers, hair coloring and styling, high end clothes and cosmetics? Not to mention cosmetic surgery botox injections and body sculpting?
     
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  5. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    5,553
    Yes, and the sooner the marketeers get hold of them the better for business. Parents should train their kids to be consumers from the day they are born.
     
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  7. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. Its a flourishing business. And it runs by the basic principles that drive capitalism. Supply is determined by demand, whether real or imagined.
     
  8. Kadark Banned Banned

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    Yes, it's that same hypocritical public, unfortunately. It's hard to deny the influence these pageantries have, and how they misdirect developing minds from pursuing academia into selling their bodies to different companies for the sole purpose of exploitation.

    Of course, I'm one of those rare people who criticize the pageantries and refuse to pay for "makeovers, hair colouring and styling, high end clothes and cosmedics". Of course, it helps to be a guy (less pressure), but whatever. Oh, and I guess it also helps to have innate beauty which is so radiating that makeovers and such aren't needed, but that's another story entirely.

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  9. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Such a slave to the system.

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    Would it bother you if you were thought ugly?
     
  10. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    20,855
    Oh, it's REAL, alright.

    "With credible estimates ranging from 60 to 115 million, India has the largest number of working children in the world. Whether they are sweating in the heat of stone quarries, working in the fields sixteen hours a day, picking rags in city streets, or hidden away as domestic servants, these children endure miserable and difficult lives. They earn little and are abused much. They struggle to make enough to eat and perhaps to help feed their families as well. They do not go to school; more than half of them will never learn the barest skills of literacy. Many of them have been working since the age of four or five, and by the time they reach adulthood they may be irrevocably sick or deformed-they will certainly be exhausted, old men and women by the age of forty, likely to be dead by fifty."

    Bonded Child Labor in India
     
  11. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    5,553
    A Message to SAM

    You can try and change the subject as much as you like by introducing irrelevant comparisons but you continue to evade the issue.

    Think of an impressionable child who is encopuraged to flaunt herself in such stupid competitions. The message she gets is that her self-worth depends on her looks. She capers about being "cute" to please the judges but fails to make the grade. Put yourself inside that kids head and tell me what she must feel about failure after the big build up!

    Even if we put the more unsavoury aspect of these contests to one side, it should be clear that they are stupid and demeaning.

    A kid who fails to win a spelling bee will be disappointed, but can take comfort in the fact that there is more to life in spelling. Not so the little girl who has been led to believe that her walue resides in her looks.
     
  12. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    5,553
    So, in your book, that makes it ok to prostitute one's children ? Don't be silly!
     
  13. Kadark Banned Banned

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    I'm sure some people do consider me "ugly", or at least, "unattractive". It truly doesn't bother me. I'm not going to waste my money to appeal to them, considering there are enough people who accept me without the extra fluff.
     
  14. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    72,825
    Good example. Banning child labor without addressing the root cause poverty, will not create any great impact, except that children will be sold into sex slavery instead.

    Similarly, in a society where it is an insult to be called ugly or to be considered less than beautiful, pouring scorn over mothers who elist beauty pageants largely to instill presentation skills and confidence in their children is completely pointless.
     
  15. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    6,865
    Any parent trying to live vicariously through their children is a disaster.
     
  16. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    10,876
    Sam, despite that little interview you called a "study", that's bullshit. These parents are not doing this for the betterment of their children. They're doing it for themselves. I've seen documentaries on it on PBS and the Discovery channel.
     
  17. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Since poverty was already acknowledged by an interview on child pageantries as a root cause, why would you not defend child labor in India for the same reason?
     
  18. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Oh I do, I'd rather have the children working to combat their poverty, than as sex slaves. I hope we can simultaneously ensure that we do all we can to alleviate their poverty (like the new farmers budget this year), but one cannot ignore the facts on the ground in favor of some abstract morality.
     
  19. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    10,876
    Oh sam! Thank you. I'm going to hang on to this statement of yours. Remember it.
     
  20. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    20,855
    Child labor, and the promotion of it, does not combat poverty, nor addresses the root cause of poverty itself, Sam. And guess what, that goes the same for child pageantries.

    I agree, most certainly a keeper!
     
  21. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I agree, but making statements like that does not make either of them go away. Just read the study you first posted on beauty pageants in children. These are not evil or manipulative or exploitative parents.


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    Oh you needn't ask me to remember it. As an Indian, I happen to belong to one of the most pragmatic people on earth.

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  22. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    I only regret that I have not the time to review all of her 1 million+ posts to apply it to. Ha!
     
  23. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    10,876
    One "study". Pffftt.

    They're evil.
     

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