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Her.meneutics is edited by associate editor Katelyn Beaty and online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

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August 11, 2009

Beauty Pageant for Landmine Victims Scrapped

Cambodia's government says the contest makes fun of the disabled. The founder says he's only trying to humanize them.

Elissa Cooper

The Cambodian government last week banned the Miss Landmine beauty pageant, slated for Friday in the capital city of Phnom Penh.

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Government officials initially supported the contest but changed their view, saying the contest would damage “the dignity and honor of people with disabilities." Besides the view that beauty pageants inherently objectify their participants, many people believe Miss Landmine mocks the disabled. (The contest logo is a one-legged female outline sporting a crown with a danger sign in the background.) In Miss Landmine Angola 2008, women took turns walking and posing on the catwalk, many of them supported by crutches.

Norwegian film director Morten Traavik launched Miss Landmine after a 2003 visit to the country of Angola in southern Africa. Civil war had recently concluded, and many landmines remained in the ground, causing injuries. When some children asked him to judge their own beauty pageant held in an alley, Traavik combined the idea of a pageant with raising awareness and support for landmine victims — or survivors, as the Miss Landmine manifesto prefers to call them.

UNICEF ranks Cambodia as the third most landmined country in the world. An estimated 4 to 6 million landmines remain in the ground 30 years after the military conflict between Cambodia’s former Communist regime, Khmer Rouge, and Vietnam. According to the Halo Trust, Cambodia is home to an estimated 25,000 amputees.

In both Angola and Cambodia, more women applied to participate than the organization could handle. Cambodia’s contestants are in various stages of life, ranging in age from 18 to 48, and include wives, widows, and mothers. In addition to vying for a prosthetic leg and other prizes, contestants are photographed wearing designer dresses and jewelry. The pictures are aesthetically tasteful and featured in art exhibits.

It helps, too, that the women themselves want to participate in Miss Landmine. Cambodian contestant Song Kosal, 24, told The Phnom Penh Post, “Even though we are disabled, we also have the right to be beautiful, to participate in society's activities, and to have equal rights with non-disabled people.”

Traavik finds in Miss Landmine a “. . . need for and joy of being seen, appreciated, taken seriously and — something so simple — not being patronized by neither bigoted neighbors nor well-meaning aid workers.”

But Lim Mony, an officer with the Cambodian human rights group Adhoc, sees the contest itself as inherently patronizing. "The [women] are disabled, but being taken to participate in a contest like that — it's not right. It is as if they are being made fun of," she told The Phnom Penh Post.

People can still vote for Miss Landmine Cambodia online, and Traavik once spoke of holding a global Miss Landmine pageant in 2015. Will people support it? Should they?

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty on August 11, 2009 9:42 AM

Comments

Having seen how the handicapped are regarded in Third World Countries, and given most womens desire, need to be seen as beautiful, I think it is a good idea.
All people, male or female need validation. While I consider "Beaty Contests" as being rather innappropriate, Validation is both good and right and necessary.
It allows them to see them selves as continueing to be a part of their society.


V

Posted By: V. Van Liew | August 12, 2009 7:24 AM

I do think this is patronizing. Leaving aside the question of whether any beauty contest is okay, why do these women need their own? This seems to say they aren't good enough for a regular beauty contest so they need their own.

Really, the whole idea of a contest about beauty is questionable. Beauty is important to a certain extent. Humans like to be considered attractive by the other gender, and culturally, women have learned to need this. However, beauty contests make it seem like only certain types are beautiful, like our looks are measured against everyone else's. This is not a healthy attitude to teach women. There has to be a better way to give these women validation.

Posted By: Anna | August 19, 2009 10:25 AM

I can see both points of view but I think its best to allow them to have their own pageant. It will allow them to feel the beauty without the nasty internal comparison game that takes place in a lot of pageants.

Posted By: pageant coaching | August 8, 2010 1:44 PM

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