I am Miss New Brunswick 2015. I became the 60th crowned jewel of the province this past August. Since then, I have experienced things I never would have had the opportunity to without the crown. Since then, people have hugged me, smiled at me, asked me about my life, thanked me and congratulated me. Since then, I have wondered if any of it even matters.
It wasn’t my initial anti-pageant personality that made me question things, or the fact that I’m more of a jeans and t-shirt girl. It wasn’t the fact that I sometimes feel foolish with the crown on my head or stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd. It was a Facebook comment.
The comment was on a post congratulating me hours after I had won, and it followed a series of strangers saying how great it was that I had been crowned. I did not know the man who said it. I don’t remember his name or why I even read it. Still, to this day, I don’t know why it even bothered me.
“I’m still trying to figure out why we have ‘Miss’ competitions anymore,” it said.
Now, saying it out loud makes me feel even more stupid. With everything that has happened to me, it shouldn’t bother me. One person’s opinion should not have any power over how I feel about my own life… but it did and still does.
The Miss New Brunswick Pageant took the word “beauty” out of its title when the current coordinator took over in 1997. The contest vowed to focus more on personality, intellect, poise and talents.
So, when I read that man’s Facebook comment, I couldn’t understand why he wanted to be so mean. I wasn’t a big fan of pageants to begin with, but after I went through the amazing experience that was Miss New Brunswick, I just couldn’t understand.
I had fun. I made eight new beautiful friends. I met people I never would have met without spending three days in Woodstock. I felt special. I felt beautiful without having to be assured I was.
Soon, I recognized the stigma around the words “pageant,” “queen,” “crown” and “sash.” When people called me a beauty queen, I wanted to rip the crown off my head and throw it in the dirt. When people called me beautiful, all I wanted was for them to ask me about school or something.
An article in The New York Times titled “Beauty Pageants, Like the Miss America Contest, Should Die” was something that opened my eyes wide.
The author said beauty pageants were “outdated and restrictive and perpetuate a damaging link between real world success and a women’s capacity to cultivate a very specific, stereotypical definition of beauty.”
I couldn’t disagree with that. But I remembered that I hadn’t been in a BEAUTY pageant… or had I?
“Let’s face it,” the article said. “The most beautiful women you’ve ever encountered would be total losers in a traditional pageant.”
Total losers? Is that what I was? The author said real beauty was about resilience, about “girls and women who have been through something and come out the other side with an idiosyncratic scar or hard-earned wrinkle.”
I was 18-years old when I was in the Miss New Brunswick Pageant. The hardest things I have ever been through have been losing my grandfather, my dog, and getting my heart broken… more times than I’d like to admit. Did that count?
My research led me to believe for too long, because I had never been through the unimaginable, that I was not worthy of my achievements. I was not qualified for success and I did not deserve to be seen as admirable or even beautiful.
To compare the low-scale pageants I have been in to Donald Trump’s overexposure of tanned, long-legged women is a bit much, and I know that. I would never defend the lucrative corporate sponsorships and money-making machines are fuelled by female insecurity and submission. But if I don’t defend myself, I have lost the battle for all women who simply want to feel like they are worthy of being a princess – even if it’s just for a year – or anything they want to be.
The article ends by saying something about how many argue that pageants build confidence and community among the participants – but so does being on a debate team or playing lacrosse.
Why does there have to be a line between those things? Why can’t the girl with the diamond-clad sash know how to persuasively speak on behalf of a topical issue? Why can’t the girl in the heels swap those out for a pair of hockey skates?
What I’ve come to find so-far in my four months of being queen of the province is that the stranger in the Facebook comment was right: nobody cares how beautiful I am. Nobody cares about the crown on my head. Nobody cares about my sash or what I’m wearing.
What has come to matter is my confidence… my presence. What matters is how I can carry on a conversation with a complete and total stranger or how I am knowledgeable about what’s going on in the world.
If my independent, strong personality that has been shaped through this experience is not resilient enough for the people I meet, then so be it. If my dedication to my title while balancing school, sports, and hobbies is not resilient enough, so be it.
I’m five-foot-two-inches tall, my teeth are not completely straight, and I struggle every single day to maintain my body weight… if proving to young girls there is no certain way you need to look is not resilient enough, then so be it.
We still have pageants because they’re fun, they give girls once-in-a-lifetime opportunities regardless of claiming the title, and they are a celebration of who each individual person is. It’s simple as that.
I am Miss New Brunswick 2015 and I’m finally proud to be a total loser.
