Former child star Betty Grumble (aka Sydney-based performance artist Emma Maye Gibson of What Makes Men Blush) yesterday joined the Melbourne contribution to an Australia-wide chain of protests against plans by US company Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant to introduce child beauty contests to Australia.
Organiser Catherine Manning claimed all-party support for a ban of such events in Victoria, and the rally was addressed by politicians from Liberal, Labor and the Greens, as well as ethicist Dr Leslie Cannold, who argued amongst other things, that gender equality was one of the defining features of Australian values; that these pageants were a throwback to 1960s American culture, especially strong in the southern states, which were ‘not a good place for women’. Posing the question ‘Why do mums want their kids to take part in them?’ she rejected the organisers’ claim that they enabled children to ‘learn confidence’.
Shadow Attorney-General Martin Pakula introduced himself as the father of a five-year-old girl. He acknowledged many worthwhile American innovations, but childhood beauty pageants were not one of them. He also rejected the claim that they were an innocent entertainment, branding them insidious. Children were not deciding for themselves whether to take part, but entered by their parents. Kids were growing up faster and faster, but there was plenty of time for them to decide about lipstick and the rest when they were grown up. He viewed his daughter as ‘a little girl, not a beauty queen’, and saw no place in Victoria for these pageants – and perhaps it was significant that the company was keeping the location secret (see report in the Melbourne Herald Sun 18 May: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/claws-sharpened-over-child-bea...
Other speakers were Neale Burgess, Liberal MP for Hastings, Colleen Hartland, Greens Upper House member, and Luke Donnellan, Shadow Minister for Child Safety - see more on Melbourne Protests, from where these photos are taken: http://melbourneprotests.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/pull-the-pin-no-child-...
Catherine Manning closed the rally with a reading of a statement delivered at similar rallies across the country, and also urged people to sign a petition to state and federal ministers calling for a stop to such events - see http://collectiveshout.org/2011/04/petition-launched-to-stop-us-child-be...
The statement:
[quote]
Today, state and federal governments across the country have heard from child development professionals, experts/academics and the greater community, and can't deny the concerns raised about child beauty pageants and their toxic culture. Of those polled, time and again, over 95% of people want to see the government pull the pin on child beauty pageants.
We call on our governments, both state and federal, to respect this request and impose age restrictions on beauty pageants and adult cosmetic procedures for children, in the best interests of all children, our Australian culture, and the status of women.
[end quote]
