Uproar over sexism

Feminist wants to stop beauty pageants immediately

Legendary: US actress Sandra Bullock, who is infiltrated as an FBI agent at a beauty pageant in order to thwart an attack. She also experienced all the scurrilities of the pageant business in the movie.

(Bild: Warner)

Misogynistic, degrading: women in danger! A South Tyrolean women's rights activist is reigniting the debate about the meaningfulness of beauty contests. Lower Austria's traditional costume lady and pageant organizer Elfi Maisetschläger no longer understands the world.

They only want one thing: world peace! And now they should no longer be allowed to express this wish on the big show stage? If Ulrike Oberhammer, President of the Provincial Advisory Council for Equal Opportunities for Women in South Tyrol and a staunch feminist, has her way, the "world peace" banter of perfectly shaped and styled women at beauty contests will be over immediately.

She is calling for an immediate end to beauty pageants after the Miss Italy competition was decided by the local council to be held in Brixen/Bressanone for the last time this year. And she is not alone in Europe: self-proclaimed correct parties in Germany and Switzerland have long seen "evil" in the Miss business.

They are all living their dream and campaigning for world peace. Here is Miss World Toni-Ann Singh

(Bild: AFP)

"You shouldn't be judged by others" 
 Ulrike Oberhammer puts it like this: "Beauty contests belong in the 1950s!" In her view, women's bodies are "judged like exhibits". "It's time to celebrate diversity. Women should no longer have to measure themselves against an externally dictated ideal of beauty. You have to feel comfortable in your body without being judged by others."

Whether this should now also apply to the male sex - after all, there are just as well-built men of creation who want world peace at Mister elections - remains unanswered, of course ...

Women should no longer have to measure themselves against an externally dictated ideal of beauty. You have to feel comfortable in your body without being judged by others.

Ulrike Oberhammer

Anyway, speaking of diversity. Just a few days ago, there was a discussion about whether men or diverse people should be allowed to become wine kings (or let's call them wine ambassadors). "Absolutely not!" was the clear answer from local winegrowing president Johannes Schmuckenschlager.

Back to the frowned upon misses and their world peace. Oberhammer: "South Tyrol doesn't need any misses, it needs strong women who can develop their talents freely!"

"Such nonsenseand nonsense"
 Elfi Maisetschläger, traditional dressmaker and pageant organizer from Lower Austria, is on a thousand: "It burns under my fingernails when I hear such zeitgeisty nonsense and nonsense!" She has been organizing pageants for 14 years. "The girls do it voluntarily and confidently. It has nothing to do with sexism here in the Waldviertel. Certainly not with belittling women. It's important to me that they can be who they are - naturally. Without injected lips or silicone in their breasts." Whatever the case, the main thing is world peace.