A fresh exploration of American feminist history told through the lens of the beauty pageant world.
Many predicted that pageants would disappear by the 21st century. Yet they are thriving. America’s most enduring contest, Miss America, celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2020. Why do they persist? In Here She Is, Hilary Levey Friedman reveals the surprising ways pageants have been an empowering feminist tradition. She traces the role of pageants in many of the feminist movement’s signature achievements, including bringing women into the public sphere, helping them become leaders in business and politics, providing increased educational opportunities, and giving them a voice in the age of #MeToo.
Using her unique perspective as a NOW state president, daughter to Miss America 1970, sometimes pageant judge, and scholar, Friedman explores how pageants became so deeply embedded in American life from their origins as a P.T. Barnum spectacle at the birth of the suffrage movement, through Miss Universe’s bathing beauties to the talent- and achievement-based competitions of today. She looks at how pageantry has morphed into culture everywhere from The Bachelor and RuPaul’s Drag Race to cheer and specialized contests like those for children, Indigenous women, and contestants with disabilities. Friedman also acknowledges the damaging and unrealistic expectations pageants place on women in society and discusses the controversies, including Miss America’s ableist and racist history, Trump’s ownership of the Miss Universe Organization, and the death of child pageant-winner JonBenét Ramsey.
Presenting a more complex narrative than what’s been previously portrayed, Here She Is shows that as American women continue to evolve, so too will beauty pageants.
“Friedman reveals the symbiotic relationship between beauty pageants and feminism, showing, unexpectedly, how their trajectories intertwine over a century, with each reflecting and responding to the other. The result is totally original, utterly compelling, wholly entertaining social history that surprised and challenged me in the best of ways.”
—Peggy Orenstein, author of Girls & Sex and Boys & Sex
“An accessible study of beauty pageant culture, this is an engaging, thought-provoking read.”
—Library Journal
“I thought I knew about pageants until I read Hilary Levey Friedman’s book Here She Is. The depth of her research is impressive and makes for a fascinating read. It also put me in mind of the way the pageant world dramatically impacted my own life.”
—Delta Burke, Emmy-nominated actress and Miss Florida 1974
“Levey Friedman’s book combines a sociologist’s sharp insight and a daughter’s love of her own Miss America mother to render a fascinating and important portrait of the complicated history of women in the United States. It’s easy to dismiss the parts of femininity that run counter to the narrative we want to tell ourselves about feminism, but Levey Friedman’s book doesn’t shy away from the truth. She grapples with all the realities of the history of womanhood in America and creates a nuanced portrait of beauty and liberation. Deeply researched and insightful, Here She Is examines the complex and ugly truths about history, patriarchy, and feminism. Levey Friedman has created an important necessary book that provides crucial insight into the enterprise of being a woman in America.”
—Lyz Lenz, author of Belabored and God Land
“Hilary Levey Friedman is uniquely positioned—as the daughter of a Miss America pageant–winner and as a scholar of sociology—to make unexpected connections between the history of American beauty pageants and the progress of American women in the political sphere. From women’s suffrage to the #MeToo movement, she expands our view of the beauty pageant as a reflection of both femininity and feminism.”
—Johanna Neuman, historian and author of Gilded Suffragists
“Friedman’s book is at once searing and sympathetic. As she shows, beauty pageants have been problematic in all of the ways we might imagine. But they have also intersected with—and, at times, advanced—feminism in ways that might surprise us. Indeed, Friedman’s great contribution is to provide compelling, nuanced portraits of the women who forged their own paths through the world of beauty pageants, often reimagining and reshaping that world along the way.”
—Blain Roberts, professor of history at California State University, Fresno and author of Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women
“How fun and informative! A combination of American history, personal history, pop culture and social analysis, this delightful book of Americana has something for nearly everyone.”
—Daniel Hamermesh, Distinguished Scholar in Economics at Barnard College and author of Beauty Pays
PREFACE
Beauty and Brains
INTRODUCTION
The Feminist Arc of Pageantry
PART I: The Birth of American Pageantry and the Feminist Movement
CHAPTER 1
America’s Handsomest Suffragists: The Start of the Woman Movement and Beauty Culture
CHAPTER 2
Sashes and Suffrage: After the Vote
PART II: The (Second) Wave of Bras and Beliefs
CHAPTER 3
Burning versus Padding Bras: The Establishment of Second Wave Feminism
CHAPTER 4
Penthouse and Platforms: Identity and Intersectional Politics
PART III: Tabloids, Trump, Tits
CHAPTER 5
Tabloids and Tiaras: The JonBenét Ramsey Murder and “Reality” TV
CHAPTER 6
The Pageantry of Politics: Campaigns during the #MeToo Era
CONCLUSION
The Future Reign of Beauty Pageants
Acknowledgments
Notes
Image Credits
Index
- “9 Dream Reads Bookworm Barbie Needs in Her Library,” Beacon Broadside, listed in reading roundup
- “What It’s Really Like to Run for Miss USA During a Pandemic,” Glamour, original piece
- “Hilary Levey Friedman: Beauty Pageants and Feminism,” Next Act for Women, Q&A
- “Author Hilary Levey Friedman: How The Evolution Of Beauty Pageants Reflects Women’s History,” Authority Magazine/Medium, Q&A
- “Beauty Pageants Hidden History,” The Young Turks, interview
- “Books You Can Watch,” Book Riot, included in book roundup
- “Tiaras and feminism,” The Three Tomatoes Happy Hour, podcast interview
- “This Brown University sociologist just wrote the definitive book on beauty pageant culture – and it’s awesome,” Boston Globe, write-up and Q&A
- “The Big Indie Books of Fall 2020,” Publishers Weekly, featured in The Big Indie Books of Fall 2020
- “BitchReads: 15 Books Feminists Should Read in August,” Bitch, book included in August must-read book roundup
- “Is It Time to Start Taking Beauty Pageants Seriously?” Forward, write-up
- “The biggest controversies from 100 years of the Miss America Pageant,” New York Post, book and author included and quoted
- “The Single Strip of Fabric That Went From ‘Votes for Women’ to ‘Miss America,’” The New York Times, op-ed
- “Power Struggle in Beauty Pageants: On ‘Mrs. America’ and ‘Miss Americana,’” PopMatters, op-ed
Here She Is: The Complicated Reign of the Beauty Pageant in America by Hilary Levey Friedman
Readers’ Guide Discussion Questions
Download the readers’ guide.
- Think about the title: Do you agree the reign of beauty pageants has been “complicated?” Can you think of another adjective to describe the history of the American beauty pageant?
- Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt beauty and brains were mutually exclusive? What, if anything, changed your mind after?
- In the Preface, on page xv, Hilary writes, “I have come to see Miss America as possibly the best example of the difficult and complicated nature of American womanhood.” Can you think of other examples that capture American womanhood for you?
- What did being a “respectable” woman mean in the nineteenth century? In the first half of the twentieth century? In what ways do they differ from today’s view?
- The hundredth anniversaries of the passage of the nineteenth amendment and Miss America occur very close together. What is surprising about the fact that their births were so close together, and what was different about each of their establishments?
- If Lenora Slaughter were alive today, what do you imagine she might be doing professionally?
- How would you answer the final question Hilary’s mom was asked—what are some of the guidelines you might give to young girls of the next generation—when she competed at Miss America?
- Do you think Hilary would have been able to study beauty pageants if her mother had not been a former Miss America? How might her family connection have aided her research?
- Despite progress, why do you think certain groups of women—like Jews, Latinas, lesbians, to name a few—remain severely underrepresented at major American beauty pageants?
- Before reading Here She Is, what was your stereotype of a pageant queen? Did that stereotype change at all after reading the book?
- Chapter 5 features Jacinta and Marta’s involvement in child beauty pageants. Was anything about their experiences unexpected to you?
- What competitive reality television show seems to be most pageant-adjacent?
- Name some links between pageants and politics that surprised you.
- Why do you think beauty contests have been a vehicle for men like P.T. Barnum and Donald J. Trump?
- In what ways has feminism helped and/or hindered the endurance of beauty pageants?
- If you were to design a sash to wear at public events, what would it say?
- How would you react if a child, or grandchild, wanted to compete in a pageant?
- Imagine you are judging a beauty pageant. What questions would you want to ask the contestants in an interview?
- How do you envision the next phase of Third Wave feminism? The Fourth Wave?
- What do you predict beauty pageants might look like 100 years from now?