Covering Up For The Beauty Contest

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and beauty contestant pageant judges want to see more skin rather than less. But don't tell that to Halima Aden, 19, of St. Cloud, an emigrant from Somali. She is the first contestant to wear a traditional Muslim headpiece in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant,  wearing the hijab for the entire competition, and pairing it with a full body bathing suit and a covered-up evening dress for different rounds of the contest.

Huh! That's like a hockey player playing on the ice with flip flops, or a boxer entering the ring dressed in a metal encased shield. It does not figure. I understand the lady has a religious proscription that wants her to wear those outfits. But why enter a skin based contest if you can't conform to the standard of the contest? Only a nutty left-wing liberal would vote for a contestant who hides her looks. It seems to me a case of  the rules and the majority of contestants changing for the benefit of one contestant that won't contest guidelines. Didn't she read the rules? Do we have to have every event in society adapt to decide to do it their way?

Here's what Halima has to day about all this. “A lot of people will look at you and will fail to see your beauty because you’re covered up and they’re not used to it. So growing up, I just had to work on my people skills and give people a chance to really know me besides the clothing," she said. “Be who you are. It’s easy to feel like you have to blend in, but it takes courage to live your life with conviction and embrace the person that you are."

Nice sentiment, but I wonder how far that idea would go for a westerner in Saudi Arabia who wore eschewed the Saudi mandated cover-up clothing by wearing a sexy bikini and sipping on a martini in the center of Rihayd. I suspect it would not be "easy to blend in" there.  Instead of "embracing the person" that westerner is, she probably would be arrested.  But then, in some cultures there is can do what I want in your country, but don't dare do what you want in mine because it "offends me".

Of course, in this country we do allow others to chart their own course. No problem. But the wise understand that in order to win a beauty contest it is necessary to show the body. It might be better for Halima to try another kind of contest, one in which the hijab doesn't put her at a disadvantage. Halima seems like a nice woman. She deserves better than the choice she made in that Minnesota beauty pageant.