By Sarah Hughes

News Editor

 discussion was hosted by the Gender Equity Center on Oct. 10 which focused on the Miss America Pageant awarding the largest scholarship available to females.

A board standing outside the center in the weeks prior read “Pageants – the biggest scholarship given to women in U.S. – is this a problem?”

The discussion lead by Cecili Chadwick, a CSUSM Women’s Studies Professor, dealt with how diverse Miss America winners are, what the process of the pageant is and whether the states of these are acceptable from a feminist perspective. The winner of the Miss America pageant receives a $50,000 scholarship, which must be used for school. Chadwick suggests that this is much higher than scholarships available to men and questions the nature of it.

During the discussion Chadwick gave a lecture on the Miss America pageant. She had played with possible titles such as “Cheerleaders for War, Playing Dress-up for Money, Little boys become president / little girls become miss America, Miss America is always heterosexual and (almost) always a white Christian,” but settled ultimately on “Madonnas, Whores and Girls-next-door.”

Some of the titles, like “Cheerleaders for War,” stress how in order to appear “wholesome” and “not opinionated” Miss America is expected to give politically sound answers, such as support of the troops.

“Madonnas, Whores and Girls-next-door” identifies a third archetype that a feminist could argue women are forced to fit into society’s misconception that all women are either maternal Mother-Mary types or whores. Chadwick argues that Miss America is supposed to be an in-between in everything, essentially not having a solid opinion or identity. In this case, the unthreatening girl-next-door. According to Chadwick, such a girl is pretty, approachable, laid-back and won’t embarrass you at parties or scold you for being wrong. She always has something smart to say about political questions, but won’t be controversial or offensive.