Miss Landmine

Things just keep getting stranger and stranger.

Fast on the heels of my twin fashion blogs comes another one about standards of beauty and the like. Only this one isn't about what someone is wearing but rather about empowerment versus exploitation.

I learned about this website and project in my Gender/Women's Studies class, and I'm really bamboozled by it. I don't know if it is empowering or just plain exploitative. It's called Miss Landmine (http://www.miss-landmine.org), and it's a beauty pageant for women in war-torn countries who have had their limbs blown off by landmines. The goal, as stated on its website, is to raise awareness about landmines and their dangers and to celebrate different kinds of beauty. The women get to make themselves all gussied up, and the winner gets a golden prosthetic as a prize.

While I am totally for promoting different kinds of beauty (including of bodies that are considered "incomplete" or "damaged" by society), I'm not sure I can entirely support the idea of a beauty contest. In all fairness, I will say that I do like the slogan, "Everyone has a right to be beautiful," and that helping the amputee women to feel more confident in what they look like and do is a good thing. The confidence reflected in the smiles and poise of these women is really stunning. However, I'm still not entirely sold on the idea. The symbol for the landmine ladies is a "female" bathroom sign that is missing a leg, and the website has a theme song and opens with either a cartoon sunrise or explosion (can't tell which it is).

The prize is totally off the mark too. As members of a more privileged society (I believe the contest is originally from European folks), they should be focusing on ways to help all the women, as opposed to giving a gold prosthetic as a prize to the most attractive of the bunch. What about regular prosthetics for all the women who need them? Or rehabilitation? Or physical/occupational therapy so they can find jobs and live with fewer limitations? I mean, sure, bringing attention to disability awareness is certainly a good thing, but this seems to make a spectacle of a condition that's already unfortunate enough on its own. It sensationalizes it by using societally attractive women to be the "faces" of the effects of mines. What about the elderly indivduals who've had this happen? Or the men? Or the kids? Or (shock*gasp) the average-looking folks who've stepped on a landmine? I can assure you that they are also affected by mines.

It's a cause that's laudable, and maybe they need any means necessary to bring about awareness of mines and disability. I'm just not sure a beauty pageant is the way to do it.