Baby Beauty Queens

While flipping through the channels the other night I stopped on one channel for a particular reason. This reason was because I saw little girls 12 and under competing for a beauty pageant crown! There were different sections of the competition and there was even a section for toddlers. How can a toddler compete in a pageant? The very young girls would get on stage and basically goof off, because of course they are not very good at dancing at a year old, then would exit with their moms smiling from ear to ear. They even had a section for babies! The mothers or fathers would dress their baby up and present them on stage. After watching this I realized this is another example of labeling a gender from the minute the baby is born. These babies were being dressed up in pink dresses even though they probably had no idea about the difference between boys and girls. I bet when these little girls grow up their view of the word female will mean, poised, gentle, kind, polite, etc. Although those are all good traits parents should not limit their childrens individuality by assigning them certain roles for their gender.