If it is true that the Miss America Pageant, as was stated by host Kathy Lee during the opening announcements of this year’s show, is the largest scholarship fund for women in America, then I feel anger and sadness for the young women of our nation and, indeed, for all of us in our society.

Do we want our daughters to vie for money, careers, advancement in their lives by parading in bathing suits in front of millions of people? Will these young women become better physicians, teachers, lawyers because their bodies look better than other young women’s bodies? Does it help the self-esteem of millions of young women who don’t fit the “ideal” image that our society has so inflicted upon us? The hypocrisy of this charade is incredible.

Do young men who are just beginning their careers put on skinny swim trunks and waltz, smiles plastered on their faces, Vaseline smeared on their teeth so they will glisten for the cameras, around their prospective employer’s offices?

I would like to know if that male speaker (the one in control of what these contestants are required to do to get their scholarship money) would be willing to put himself in such a humiliating predicament so that he could better his prospects for employment.

Our society is based on a patriarchal system stemming from the roots of our Judeo-Christian theology that has been, to the unquestioned detriment of half the human race, in place for thousands of years. Women have been subjegated as the property of men since the time of the squashing of the matrilineal civilizations through brute force.

The Miss America Pageant, and all the other beauty contests that begin for women even as tiny children (the Junior Misses, the Pre-teens, etc.), only helps to keep women and men enslaved to the ideal that women are to be treated as objects, not as people.

It is time to end this “tradition.” It is time to begin finding better, respectful ways of helping our daughters. Janeen Teal Orono