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toddler and tiaras

french beauty pageants, ban, toddlers and tiaras, misogyny, sexism, sexualization of children

French Government bans beauty pageants. Looks like I might be moving to France! Don’t fret. I’m raising girls and trying to raise them to value themselves on more than just what they look like and the size of their asses so a move may be inevitable. The French Senate voted early Wednesday to ban beauty pageants for children under 16 years old and to impose up to two years in prison and steep fines of up to $30,000 euros for adults who try to enter children into such a contest or run illegal/underground pageants. You all know how I despise toddlers in tiaras. Well, I hate the misogyny it represents.

One pageant owner, Le Parmentier, has already said that if the law is passed, he might move his pageant to Belgium but close to the French border, to accommodate French contestants who want to compete without having to worry about legal consequences. Come on. We’ve all seen those crazy pageant moms on Toddlers and Tiara’s, there’s not much they won’t do to pit their child against someone else’s. It’s like dogfights with pretty little girls made up like clowns.

french beauty pageants, ban, toddlers and tiaras, misogyny, sexism, sexualization of children

I’ve never been a fan of beauty pageants, especially for children. I understand competing as a teen for scholarships but there has to be more to it than just the way you look. Give me a nerd bowl any day. What are we trying to teach our little girls? There is nothing anyone can say to convince me that there is any reason ever to dress 4-year-olds up in spray tans, partial dental pieces, and more make-up than Tammy Faye Baker. They pluck their eyebrows and use breast inserts and then parade them around in $2500+ dresses and make them perform like dancing monkeys high on Mountain Dew and Pixie Stix all while their overweight moms yell at them because they themselves suck at life!

Honestly, if you give me the “it teaches them self-confidence” speech, I might have to smack you. How are you helping self-esteem by teaching them that they have to look a certain way, be held to a certain standard of beauty to even count? What I want to know is when is the U.S. going to follow suit? Way to keep women down.

french beauty pageants, ban, toddlers and tiaras, misogyny, sexism, sexualization of children

 The amendment is part of a broader bill on women’s rights, which will now proceed to the National Assembly, French Parliament’s lower house, for debate and another vote.

The senators who voted in favour of the measure argue that it will protect children from being prematurely “sexualised” through the use of heavy make-up and often-provocative attire.

The amendment was prompted by a a parliamentary report entitled “Against Hyper-Sexualisation: A New Fight For Equality”, which, in addition to calling for an end to the pageants, encouraged a ban on adult-style clothing for children, including padded bras and high-heeled shoes.

“Let us not make our girls believe from a very young age that their worth is based only on their appearance,” the author of the report, former sports minister and current senator Chantal Jouanno, said in an interview with free French daily “20 Minutes” last year.

Controversy surrounding the issue peaked in December 2010, when French Vogue published a photo spread featuring images of a 10-year-old French girl, Thylane Loubry Blondeau, decked out in a tight dress, jewellery, high heels and make-up. Not surprising the photos sparked international outrage. Not unlike the Jours après lune lingerie campaign for little girls. WTF?

The magazine argued that the photos were meant to capture a classic fantasy of young girls – to dress up like their mother. That only holds water if their mothers were seductresses or worked in the sex industry. Which reminds me, yesterday I caught an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras (purely for research) in which the parents financed their pageant addiction with the money they earned from their stripper-to-your-home business. Well, it was Vegas so I guess it is to be expected. Of course, I thought it was in very poor taste to have the strippers, half-naked, cheering from the audience. I guess the bright side is at least they weren’t completely naked.

french beauty pageants, ban, toddlers and tiaras, misogyny, sexism, sexualization of children

If the bill is signed into law, as expected, pageants like the annual “Mini-Miss” contest in Paris will no longer take place. Now, if we can just get the same thing to happen here in the United States. Maybe we should make a law about parents not being allowed to live vicariously through their children? That should solve it all.

Needless to say the pageant Queens of the world and their crazy mothers won’t go down without a fight, expect lots of Tammy Faye Baker make-up, tulle and 14-foot trophies and hair to match coming at you in protest. Me, I hope beauty pageants go the way of the dinosaur. Extinct.

Moms, stop sexualizing your little girls and making it easy for the pedophiles. No toddler needs to be on stage wearing a skimpy two-piece bikini, pouting her lips and shaking her little ass. Stop encouraging her. Stop teaching her that to be of value she has to be beautiful and little kid beautiful is not good enough, she has to look like a grown woman. We wonder why teens are getting pregnant and having sex at younger ages, maybe it’s because they are being taught to be sexy when they are 2 by their own parents. Little girls are being taken, raped and murdered at an alarming rate, don’t give pedophiles an invitation to oogle your little girl. Protect your daughters.

french beauty pageants, ban, toddlers and tiaras, misogyny, sexism, sexualization of children

If we don’t stop this toddlers and tiaras madness, this is the next stop.

french beauty pageants, ban, toddlers and tiaras, misogyny, sexism, sexualization of children, Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball

What do you think of little girls in beauty pageants? Is it harmless fun or early sexualization of our little girls?

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