Miss Venezuela Crowned Miss World, Protesters Say Porn a Danger to Contestants

London ushered in the 61st annual Miss World winner on Sun., Nov. 6 at Earls Court as protesters from bra-burning days chanted “Still here, still angry” outside the auditorium, where seats go for 100 pounds each to see the famous beauty pageant. But the reason for their anger, they say, is due to pornography.

Million Women Rise founder Sabrina Qureshi supplied the reasoning behind the protest, using the recent Joanna Yeates murder to support the group’s premise that being beautiful can lead to crime and female victimization, and how they feel its better to not advertise beauty on the world stage.

“We have read that the murderer of Joanna Yeates was using pornography which contained images very similar to how he murdered Joanna,” Qureshi stated. “To stop such heinous crimes against women and girls,’ the Telegraph reported, ‘we need to stop trivializing what may appear to be harmless.”

To date, there is no evidence to support that any Miss World contest has prompted the victimization of a Miss World winner. And Joanna Yeates was not a Miss World contestant, nor did she meet her murderer at a beauty pageant. Unfortunately, he lived in the same community as the victim and met her that way.

Former Miss England winner Laura Coleman tried to appeal to the feminists in her midst in advance of the competition, stating that “Appreciating beauty should not cause anger.” She went on to try and enlighten groups such as the London Feminist Network, UK Feminista and Object by saying that “Women enter beauty pageants at their own will.”

That’s certainly true. Many women see the pageant as either a platform to use to vault to a career objective, earn college monies or play out their competitive tendencies on a world stage.

The former Miss England said beauty pageant contestants should have the right to participate without having to worry about other women trying to stop them. “I’m fed up of these protesters trying to bully us and push us around. We live in a free society where women have the right to choose,” Coleman said.

The new Miss World, Miss Venezuela Ivian Sarcos, appears to be in the court with Coleman, a willing participant in the international beauty contest who appears far from a victim, deftly beating 122 other qualified contenders for the title. Sarcos is one of 13 children according to Reuters and already has her own foundation in support of children, so she isn’t strictly focused on her looks.

Miss Venezuela’s words about winning on Sunday night highlight another misconception about the beauty pageant and its contestants that feminist protesters or pageant naysayers seem to get wrong. She says that her greatest “moment” didn’t happen when she became the new Miss World. Instead, her defining moment was “When I did my communion.”


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