Runway may get slippery for beauty pageants
15/3/2005 8:32
Some lawmakers are calling on government leaders to take action
against the pernicious effects of beauty contests on the nation's young
women.
"Government departments should wait no further to urge caution against
the rampant beauty contests that are being held across the country," said Li
Yaping, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairwoman of central
China's Henan Provincial Women's Federation.
As the NPC closed its annual
session in Beijing yesterday, she and others suggested that policies be
developed to better regulate the pageants.
Beauty contents were long
discouraged in China for treating women like objects until a string of
international events mushroomed around the end of 2003.
With captivating
figures wrapped in rainbow-colored bikinis, beautiful women from around the
globe strolled the white-sand beaches of Sanya on Hainan Island for the widely
watched Miss World pageants in 2003 and 2004 and have made the island well known
as a paradise for Asian holidaymakers.
Officials forecast that the number of
tourists visiting Sanya will increase by 20 percent to more than 3.5 million,
and that total tourism earnings will grow by 26 percent to 3.7 billion yuan
(US$446 million), largely as a result of the beauty contests.
The noticeable
success of the Miss World pageant not only attracted similar international
events but also spurred a considerable number of local beauty contests.
But
along with the economic gains for the cities that sponsored them, the pageants
also promoted a craving for overnight fame and fortune among the country's young
women, even those with strong education backgrounds.
At many regional beauty
pageants, at least half the contestants are full-time students, and that's a
conservative estimate, Gao Jie, project manager of Beautiful World Lit, a Hong
Kong-based company in charge of the Miss World Contest in China, said in a
previous interview.
NPC Deputy Li is concerned about the increasingly popular
belief among female university students that good grades count for less than
good looks in securing a bright future.
"The concept could erode a young
man's adherence to values such as hard work," she said.
Among the solutions,
regulations are being urged that would prevent government departments from
becoming involved in beauty pageants and which would limit media reports to a
"reasonable" level.
Women's groups are also calling for an end to unnecessary
cosmetic surgery for minors.
(Xinhua)
Xinhua
|
