Pageants
Beauty and the rest of it
By Yemisi Ogbe
I suppose it is part of the territory of Beauty Pageants to be awed by dazzling smiles, long slim legs, radiant skin, and perfect figures and to be simultaneously taken aback, stopped in one’s tracks when some of the owners of these virtues open their mouths: In 2008, I was invited to be part of a panel that judged contestants for the Calabar Carnival Queen. Young ladies came into a room on the top floor of the Okoi Arikpo building in Calabar; one after the other. They were asked to act as if they were on the catwalk, then dance and sit and speak.
The carnival queen from 2007 was present. She was and is an absolute stunner, graceful, well spoken. In her presence, no matter how old you were, you straightened up. You immediately wanted to relate to such beauty and grace. As an outsider to the pageant, I had heard that some people were offended by the fact that she was Igbo, not Efik nor Ejagham, not from Creek town or Odukpani or whatever. Did it matter, really matter when she encapsulated everything that a young intelligent, personable lady should? When she perfectly represented the prescribed role of the Calabar Carnival queen?
After each young lady did a swaying walk back and forth at the narrow allowance given at the front of the room the questioning began:
“What do you like? Do you read?” “What do you like to read?” “What are your views on abortion and teen pregnancy?” “What is your opinion on abstinence?” “What is that economic condition that the world is experiencing? What is it called?” “What do you want to do when you are done with university?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” “Does he give you money?” “Why does he give you money?” “Do you have a job that you do apart from school?” What does the acronym HIV stand for?” “What will you do with the opportunity to become CCQ 2009?”
We waited for the answers. It was to be expected that our standards and our expectations would be high because we had a resounding success of a queen in Chineye Uwanaka selected the year before. The pageant during her tenure had gained popularity and had drawn all these young ladies who wanted to fill her shoes. It wasn’t unnatural to expect the possibilities for 2009 to be better.
Many of the answers to the questions came back mechanically, answers rehearsed without any force of personality behind them. Many of the young ladies “begged our pardon” and looked lost. Many of them didn’t know what a “recession” was. Many had only read text books and nothing else, and only because they had to do so for an examination. Many of them were sexually active and didn’t believe in abstinence. One could presume they hadn’t even read the requirements that the Queen had to believe, practice, and promote abstinence as an example to younger ladies and a promoted remedy against teen pregnancy. Many answered our questions about their sexuality as if we were “out of touch”. “Of course they were sexually active. Who wasn’t!” their expressions threw back. It was clear that their sexuality was about what was trendy. They didn’t really own their own opinions, neither did they understand that we asked these questions because we were trying to find an original mind housed in a beautiful body. As the day wore on, we began to despair.
More than trying to find a queen, finding someone who at least marginally represented the pageant’s views seemed near impossible, alarm bells began to ring about what was happening with a whole generation of women. Beauty was easy after all. One was born with it, blessed with it, but what about the hard and necessary things? Developing one’s mind? Reading? Asking questions? Owning a world view? Listening to the news? Owning ambition? Spending one’s own money and not a man’s? Having autonomy from the will and desires of men by working hard?” Delaying sexual activity and gratification until one has the necessary relationships that protect sexual unions and the result of them? Or even the things that one could take for granted like speaking well? Having a favorite book? KNOWING WHAT H.I.V stands for?!
The prognosis was bad. What were mothers and fathers teaching their children? What were they demanding from them? Had they expressed no expectations of these young women except that they be beautiful, married, that they go on to produce children? Nothing more? What would the relevance of these young ladies be in the next 5 years, when one could presume that the beauty that was being showcased here would be on the back burner? What mountain would they have moved in their communities? What invention would they have come up with? How would they measure against women from other parts of the world? What values would they in twenty years pass on to their own daughters?
Where on earth was that explosive combination of beauty talent logic intuition emotional intelligence and education that one could presume would be available in a community and a culture as rich and beautiful and as diverse as Cross River State? Or in the South East or South South? If the net is cast wide, will it catch an Obioma Liyel Imoke or Chimamanda or Margaret Ekpo? Where is Nkoyo Toyo as a young lady? Professor Eka Braide? Amma Ogan? Alright, a few generations closer, where is Oluchi Onweagba or Agbani Dorego? Kate Henshaw Nuttal?
Where are the beautiful and relevant women?
In short supply I suppose is the answer. This scarcity is no joke. No matter how contemporary the world becomes, women remain the main purveyors of values to young children. They will be the key nurturers. Until men own wombs, women will be the hands that rock the cradle. Their viewpoint will rule our world, whatever that viewpoint, no matter how skewered, dangerous, empty, narrow minded or offensive. There will be no lack of beautiful women. Nature will make sure of that, but what of dispatching the responsibility of showcasing real beauty? Of setting a standard so high for the Carnival Queen that her role model status is indisputable?
I have two small daughters and by the time their generation becomes the same age as the CCQ competitors, I would like to be able to engage them and ask these same questions and hear answers that would show that Cross Riverian women are strong participators in society, interested in science and economic booms and recessions and lunar eclipses; in environmental conservation and breakthroughs in cancer treatments; in the Odupkani depression and the growth of cabbages in Obudu. In local government elections and market trends...as well as Mac makeup and Dagrin r.i.p!
CCQ has a greater responsibility than turning out physically beautiful girls who can piously reel off the roles of the queen if they are suddenly woken up from sleep. Because its procedures in looking for the ideal queen has exposed a dearth of grounded well educated, motivated young women, and has shown that we must intensify and refine our efforts to educate our women and groom them for relevance in a much bigger world than the one where superstars and gyrating girls on television are esteemed, the pageant has got its work cut out. The organizers must push the standards even higher. They must choose and showcase young ladies who inspire whole generations of women, who leave their indelible mark after one short year and who use CCQ as a platform to change their world.
