hazza, deliberately corrupts child beauty competitions to be the same as child abuse, then accuses people of defending child abuse

Quite telling actually when you see people being deliberately deceptive and manipulative to set up straw man arguments to insist on their own point of view and everyone else must be demonized.

The usual hysteria of the left, demanding everything be regulated or you're defending child abuse.

Thankfully the community see these pageants as something parents do as a bit of fun and dress up and it is nowhere near the emergency that some of the hysterical alarmists make out, but then, they exaggerate everything .. so no matter.

I don't have daughters. But I understand from people that do, that girls like dressing up. They prefer it, I am told, to playing football.

So it would seem to me to be as equally ok for the kids to play football, and for one side to win, as it is for the girls to play dress-up, and see who wins.

On a slightly darker note, I suspect that the wowsers here might be those who see sexuality in everything, even in little girls playing dress-up. As such, wanting to ban it says far more about them than they might otherwise feel inclined to reveal.

Parents will screw their kids up in any manner of ways, and I don't see the significance of a pushy parent in this area as opposed to some of our olympic swimmers or nearly olympic swimmers.

I love those glorious stories of dedication in the pool from age 8, swiming 50 laps before school. No mention of the pushy parents until they start obstructing media access to tennis prodigies.

Maybe parents of chess champions are the only blameless parents, as pushing a kids natural mental abilities for fame and fortune is ok it seems.

The Physics professor is no more vain or well rounded than the swimwear model. Nobody gets upset that nerds aren't valued for their looks and charisma!

Maybe we should ban any competition where natural Allah given talents are used.

Actually we should just ban competition, as parents can be pushy. But then we must also ban the not pushy enough parents who don't send their gorgous girls to Little Miss Springfield, but also neglect to feed their kids, or don't make them eat vegetables. Not being pushy about vegetables is actually encouraging a more independent child who doesn't put their health above all else and wont become fitness obsessed.

And to think they threw stones at that guy because he entered his daughter in a full contact Karate competition. He should be a gender-feminist poster man! At least he wasn't shekshualising her. Unless you're into girls fighting that is.

I'm with Pericles. Again. Dirty minds man!

Should we ban K-Mart catalogs? I hope not because I always suggest new Bras for the Missus, and do detailed analysis while interrupting her enmjoyment of some soap on TV.(he lure of free lingerie overrides her objection to my perving).

Hmmm. Soap... Box! Seems fitting here.

Hahaha, I said Box!

I think we really need to stop politicising children.

So feminists don't like the fact that men like to look at beautiful women. So what. Do we argue that the chavs and pikey males of society have been disenfranchised because they didn't succeed at sport or acedemia? No, we just berate them for being laga louts.

But for a women who isn't pretty, it's considered some virtiolic male conspiracy, and the world must change!

Men value what they value, and so do women. Looks are important to men. If a woman can get more money from her looks good on her. If a guy can get more sex by being a rock star or a rugby player, nobody cares.

Why is making the most of your intelligence not a sin but making the most of your looks illicits cries of vainty!

'Beauty isn’t a talent or skill they can practice, enhance or improve. No other competition for children compares.'

I call Bu11sit! They don't rate pictures. Dancing is a skill, communicating is a skill, so too posture, poise, make-up, dress sense.

'It's not like sport where you can say to the child- well perhaps footy/cricket/swimming isn't your thing, or maybe you're not interested, or maybe you didnt train enough, or maybe you'll grow up to be stronger and faster.'

Yeah it is! Ugly ducklings grow into swans. The skills can be worked on.

'you have to say to her- you are not pretty enough, you are physically inferior'
Do you? Doesn't sound very tactful.

I'd never consider telling a kid who comes second in the 100m 'you are not fast enough, you are physically inferior to that kid who beat you'.

Maybe it's the messages of parents that are the problem not the competition.

Amicus- considering that I elaborated why the situations can make a negative impact on children (and why it is comparable with child labor), it's hardly a strawman.
Meanwhile, you haven't presented a single explanation of the contrary, so are hardly one to accuse of making empty accusations.

Pericles- don't look at me, I never even needed to bother throwing the "sexualization" accusation in, because it doesn't need to be mentioned, and in complete absence Pageants are still a lifestyle detriment.
The difference between kids playing dress up, and pageants, is that in voluntary play-dress up, the children decide whether to play dress up (not their parents), what they dress up as (not the parents), who they are dressing up for (not random strangers their parents are trying to show off to, or spite), the stakes of what and how they dress up are (usually none at all, as opposed to being devalued by strangers in notable judgement positions), and most importantly, when they decide dressing up is boring and decide they'd rather do something else (not their parents).

This analogy would be similar to a kid's lemonade stand. Plenty of children love setting up lemonade stands and selling lemonade. Now, imagine if their parents insisted they HAD to spend part of their free time selling lemonade, expected and trained to haggle prices with customers, and were expected to turn a set minimum profitable margin on their weekly sales.
That would be the difference between children's dress up games, and parents making them attend child pageants.

King Hazza, I doubt many of the parents 'force' their daughters to compete in Beauty pageants.

I believe that if they really didn't want to do it, they could easily mess everything up for themselves when on stage!
They could just refuse to smile :)

There doesn't appear to be any more emotional harm involved in this sort of 'encouragement' than that of 'forcing' kids to go to churches etc and pretend to pray to mythical Gods, surely?