For the first time since 1950, there will be no Miss Israel beauty pageant in Israel, and Israel will not send a contestant to the Miss Universe contest that will take place in the United States in January. According to i24 News, the decision “aroused many reactions, some deploring the event’s end while others rejoiced. In recent years,” the story continues, “the pageant has been criticized on the grounds that women are only judged on their physical appearance.”
I sympathize with the critics. I do not think that the length of a woman’s legs is a yardstick for her beauty. Besides, how can anyone decide who is the most beautiful woman in the world when every race and ethnicity has its own characteristic look? How can we compare the Japanese standard of beauty to the European standard beauty, and who can say which is more beautiful?
To pretend as if these girls are treated as anything but objects, the judges ask the contestants silly questions, which no one even expects them to answer sincerely. If we were to believe them, we would think that all the girls wished for world peace, and they are all deeply troubled by climate change.
A student of mine told me that the contest is losing popularity and asked why I thought this was happening. I was happy to hear about this; I think it could be a sign that we are maturing, and we are beginning to look beyond the physical.
It is time to start looking for inner beauty because at the end of the day, this is what makes people happy. When you search for a woman’s inner beauty, you will find that you cannot measure it. This is true not only of women, but of all people. When you search for their beauty, it is always hidden.
A person’s beauty evolves over time. It is defined by one’s connections with other people and with the environment. Beautiful people are caring people, people who sympathize with the sorrows and hardships of others, and want to help them feel better.
Such feelings are a gift, but we can also develop them. Once we recognize how self-centered we are, we can learn to change.
It is not a process that one can do on one’s own, but if we, as a society, decide that we have had enough of the Me! Me! Me! culture, we will be able to teach ourselves to think more in terms of We! and less in terms of Me! This will do a world of good for everyone. It is certainly a better way to promote world peace than conducting Miss Universe beauty pageants.
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