Pageant

I turned on the evening news and caught the last few minutes of the Miss Universe pageant. The winner was Miss Venezuela. I didn't really look at the women, but I'm sure all of them were beautiful in that beauty-pageanty way. Knowing a wonderful man from Venezuela, I was happy for his country, but I am reminded of what little difference beauty pageant winners make in the world. Men, often physically ugly ones, run the show. They don't need to be attractive to have power. And you don't see men with real power competing in anything so surface as appearance evaluations (i.e., Mr. Universe, Arnold S., may be the exception, but we must recall that it was his body that was evaluated, not his strange lantern-jawed face).

Yet we still evaluate women, even powerful ones, on the basis of appearance. Hillary Clinton had an uphill battle for her candidacy for President, but imagine how hard it would have been if people had begun to whisper that she didn't shave her armpits.

And I am equally guilty of evaluating women on the basis of appearance, I confess. Our governor, Jennifer Granholm (in the picture), is by anyone's evaluation a quite beautiful woman. Recently (about a month ago?) she was hospitalized suddenly for a bowel obstruction and had to have surgery. Since she's been out of the hospital, she's had to make a number of public appearances, and to be honest, she looks dreadful. Her gorgeous blonde hair, always so perfectly coiffed, now looks like she let her children style it for her. She's pulling it back with a bulldog clip, and since it's thin and fine, it's just a mess. There's been talk of her being a potential vice-presidential choice for Barack Obama, but I can't imagine that she'd be seriously considered at present. She looks frumpy, and heaven forbid, a powerful woman cannot look frumpy. I think her appearance is affecting her ability to govern because suddenly she seems tentative, weak, wishy-washy, and soccer-mom-ish. She lacks the sharp command of before. Of course, illness can do that to anyone, but I think she'd be the decisive governor she was before if she felt attractive again. (Keep in mind that Governor Granholm at her worst is still prettier than most women at their best.)

So the beautiful Miss Venezuela can certainly reign over the world of lovely young women, but she will never have real power, unless she marries a powerful man or somehow turns into a Venezuelan Oprah. (Even rich-as-Midas Oprah knows that she has to continue to be attractive, or else she won't get to be the perennial cover girl for her own magazine.)

So congratulations to the new Miss Universe (I'm quite sure that once we discover bacterial life on Mars, we're going to have to change the parameters of this contest), and I hope she has a happy and peaceful year with her crown. But don't ask her to run a country or anything. Her new title and crown won't help her much if what she really wants is power to effect change. S.