Let’s get rid of Miss America, this gross, stupid competition

Miss Virginia 2017 Cecili Weber participates in the swimsuit challenge during the 2018 Miss America Competition Show. Picture: Getty Images.

Miss America has scrapped the swimsuit parade, but really why stop there? Can’t we get rid of the whole stupid competition?

Because it’s just so gross.

“We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance.”

So said the organisers, in announcing their decision, which also sees the end of the evening wear segment.

Plenty of people are out there celebrating: “Hooray, because we want to be judged on our brains, not our bodies!”

But honestly, we don’t need any of it. It’s ludicrous to have women strutting around a stage, in a ferocious competition with one another, for some kind of prize.

Don’t we do enough of that in real life?

Truly guys, we don’t need a stage for this. Too many women are already caught up in a desperate competition with other women. Who is thinnest? Who is prettiest? Who has the smallest waist and the roundest boobs?

And why do we do it? Who even knows anymore, but historically, because to the victor, the spoils.

Kara McCullough was crowned Miss USA 2017. Picture: Getty Images.

Women traditionally haven’t been able to make it on their own. They weren’t encouraged in their education. They couldn’t get well-paying jobs. They had infants and children to raise. They couldn’t own property. They didn’t have bank accounts in their own names.

A sure way of protecting oneself was to get married, and so began the competition to land a good man.

Good riddance to all that. And to the swimsuit competition. Not that Miss America herself is going anywhere. Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America who heads the organisation’s board of trustees, told the ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday: “We are moving it forward … We are no longer a pageant. We’re a competition.”

A competition for what?

To find out who is the best woman? Who decides? By what measure?

Just let women be. Let them grow up making mud pies, and teach them how to read. Encourage them in their education. Promote them on merit. Pay them on performance. Adore individual ones for their personal qualities, and let them love you back. No judgment. How about that?