Child Beauty Pageants Should Be Banned Essay -- Argumentative Essay, 2

Imagine you are at home, watching tv. Flipping through the channels, you see a preview for next week’s episode of Toddlers & Tiara’s. They show the girls dressed in frilly, sparkly attire, fake teeth, fake hair, fake tans, and makeup that could transform their faces into someone in their 20’s. These children are usually misbehaving, disobedient, overdramatic and they are between the ages of four and six. Any person could see that this lifestyle is incredibly harmful to these children not just because of what it does to their appearance, but what happens when these little girls’ minds become tainted with the thoughts of needing to be beautiful and talented in order for people to like them. They also learn that being beautiful means doing whatever it takes to make yourself look perfect, even if it means that everything about you is fake. At the same time, when these little girls are dressing up for these shows, they are being put in outfits that could b e worn by strippers. This draws attention to sex offenders and pedophiles, which could potentially end up in something tragic. Claude Knights, the director of child protection charity Kidscape, says, "We do know that predators or paedophiles continually tend to justify their interest in children by saying children are sexual beings. That children are now given a channel to become little Lolitas, to be portrayed as older, to almost become mini adults – these are all trends that give legitimacy to that kind of thinking." In the end, children’s beauty pageants are essentially harmful to both young girls safety and minds. It may not happen to some, but most of the young girls that compete in beauty pageants seem to have a bit of an attitude towards their parents and ... ...today.com/blog/food-thought/201108/child-beauty-pageants-what-are-we-teaching-our-girls>. "Child Beauty Pageant Statistics." OccupyTheory. N.p., 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. . Day, Elizabeth. "Living dolls: inside the world of child beauty pageants." The Observer. Guardian News and Media, 11 July 2010. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. . Image/Video Citations -http://susannemoore.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/childrens-beauty-pagents-eden-wood/ -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_7vsWF_Ox4 -http://www.soulfulspoon.com/2013/03/my-take-thursdays-how-to-recover-from.html#.U09T2yjrdSo -http://cynicalreview.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/child-beauty-pageants-harmless-fun-or-vomit-inducing-child-abuse/ -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRSUS4WZO5Q