It may be one of Britain's most successful and enduring exports - Miss World. This 53-year-old event took place in China last week and attracted over 120 women worldwide with knockout looks in a mad scramble for the crown.

It can be considered a giant leap forward for men to display their charm naturally on stage of beauty pageant. [File photo]

But according to Helena Iveson, in her book of entitled: "The British Started It But Don't Like it", the contest that in the 60s and 70s was a national event, is no long fashionable in Britain nowadays.

But Chinese people have come to like it. University students are portrayed positively in the media for their participation in the numerous beauty contests in China. They are courageous, trendy and are no longer bookworms or "goody-goody students".

Traditional values have long kept the Chinese, especially women, from displaying beauty. The only "beauty contests" that used to exist were in the form of selecting wives or concubines. But Chinese people have now changed their attitude toward beauty contest, although some men will still be shouting that the winner is no more beautiful than his wife or his former girl friend or even his mother in a sour and caustic tone.

But such men are not shouting for the right reason. The question should be: Why isn't there a Mr. World Beauty Contest?

And a further question to be asked is: Does taking part in a beauty contest show a woman's the courage, wisdom and liberation or rather the opposite - a forced choice and a revolting act made under conditions of long-term suppression, discrimination, distrust and discredit?

In Helena Iveson's article, it is revealed that the 1999 Miss World Contest was met with demonstrators hurling flour bombs, denouncing the contest as a "sexist cattle market" and fighting with police, while last year's contest held in Nigeria received the worst publicity in its history, where violent contest-related protests left more than 200 people dead.

Organizers of such beauty contests claim that the contestants are judged on qualities other than just their physical appearance. But still no answer is given to why there isn't a Mr. Beauty or a Mr. World Contest? Or at least, why isn't that kind of contest popular? Why is it that only women's "qualities" need to be put under scrutiny and need to be recognized but not men's?

"In the past, the contest was just an opportunity to stare at women's faces and breasts, but now the standards of beauty are changing," we have been told. But by saying this, the official from the National Women's Union fails to address this question: Whose standards are these? Are these standards men's standards or women's standards or some universally recognized standards, if there are any?

Of course these are more men's standards than women's.

Think about who is always standing beside a fancy car on show? Is it a boy or a girl? And this is how "qualities" are judged: if the girl looks good, there is little reason why the car beside her is not of high quality.

The beauty contests go on year after year, with winners enjoying fleeting fame which quickly evaporates. While such events go on and on, what never changes is the routine practice that in every fancy car show, a girl stands beside a fancy car. What never changes is the need to convene a women's conference every year to appeal for the promotion of respect for and improvement of women. What never changes is the fate of women as a class. So let's put more time and resources into trying to change all this rather than holding beauty contests.

Another alternative is: next time, try having a Mr. World Contest, and try having a handsome man standing beside a fancy car, and try out the slogan: "Love him, love Hagen-Das."

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