This Feminist Defends Miss America

I was asleep. I was asleep and in my bed and my eyes were half way closed when I decided to check Facebook one last time. And then I saw it. I saw what would enrage me and force me out of my bed to type this. What would land me on the floor of my half-painted living room because my wifi that I pay $100+/month for is moving slow and I had to plug straight into the ethernet. I am angry in this moment and for that dear readers let me apologize in advance for the inevitable typos, misspellings and grammar errors.

But I am furious. And I write my best when I am furious- aside from the typos.

The same thing that awoke me from what might have been a decent nights sleep is the same thing that greeted me this morning: criticism of my hometown girl, Betty Cantrell, our newest Miss America.

As a blogger and freelance writer, I try hard to stick to the facts or to at least be clear when something is simply my opinion here. I try to be responsible and so when I see others publishing stuff that is simply click baity nonsense or making comments on social media that are nearly impossible to back up- or just straight out rumors- it makes me head want to explode.

That being said, I consider myself to be a Julia Sugarbaker type feminist: one whose progressive views sometimes run head on with her Southern upbringing. It can be quite difficult to marry the two at times. And yet, my defense of Miss America is not difficult. There is a blogger, I suppose one could call her that, whose post I ran across this evening. She says:

I placed a screenshot here of what she said so that I cannot be accused of misquoting her. Let me add, the author, Hannah Franke, is an undergraduate English student at Rutgers University. She says in her bio:

Ms. Franke, here is a link to my LinkedIn account. Feel free to peruse it as much as you like and reach out if you want some free advice on how to get ahead as a writer.

But don’t start reminiscing of the Yankees burning down fictional Tara- oh no, there’s some home cooking criticism of our girl as well. One thing about what I do is that sometimes I hear from y’all in private messages about things I should be writing about. As things would go, this happened this morning when a friend reached out concerned about an Internet troll posting on multiple media pages saying Miss America was a bully in high school. This is an adult, a grown-up, saying these things. About someones behavior in high school.

And then the inevitable slut shaming:

“Betty did a lot more at MDS than just bully… just ask the football team”

I hesitate to fuel the fire here, but hell it was said on a major media page Facebook account so God only knows how many people saw this.

Ms. Evans is simply proving here that you don’t just have to be in a pageant, or even high school, to be mean to other women.

What bothers me so much about this is we as woman encouter this everywhere. We’re sluts. We’re prudes. We’re too aggresstive at work OR we devote too much time to our families at not enough at work. Why are we always so hard on other women? Why are we doing this to ourselves? Feminism is about empowerment whether you agree with the choices of someone else or not.

Now, I could continue the mudslinging and repeat the things that were said to me about Ms. Evans daughter but I won’t because that young lady has not entered the ring as far as I can tell and it’s not relevant. But Ms. Evans is a different story because she has chosen to put herself out there for everyone to see what she is saying, and by doing so she opens herself up to the same criticism she is dishing out for Miss Cantrell. You, Ms. Evans, should be ashamed of yourself. I have to ask, at what point do we stop with the slut shaming? It’s one thing to say she bullied your child or someone else’s child and to ask for an apology, if that happened I can understand the hurt that might still be there and wanting such but to then take it a step further is simply uncalled for and hurts your own argument Ms. Evans.

And then we’ve also got some guy commenting saying- oh she can hurt me! Hurt me! Christ.

Back to the first criticism, that article blows me away on so many levels. In an era where rudeness is mistaken for snark and humor it’s generally other women who claim to be feminists that are ringing the bell for change. (Note: I didn’t see the author say as much in her profile, I’m assuming based on the tone of her post that she might categorized herself as a feminist.) You’re seriously going to say this girl shouldn’t be Miss America because she’s… human? Because she tripped physically and on a question? Tripping on a line in the theatre is called improvisation and applauded. Getting up when we fall is something one does every day.

For those of you who criticize her let me tell you something: you weren’t with me watching her sing “Let It Go” to an audience of enraptured children. My kids didn’t have any idea that she would be America’s princess someday, all they saw was a girl who was taking the time to sing their favorite song to them and to others.

I personally believe the ability to get back up, to recover after a stumble, to admit when you’re wrong or nervous are even larger reasons she should be Miss America than why she shouldn’t. That’s exactly the example I want set for my daughter and, for that matter, my son.

Here’s something else- we get upset about our girls being bullied, we talk shit when they do well. But we don’t do this when our boys succeed? Why? Why do we claim to uphold our girls to a standard that we ourselves cannot seem to uphold? Why do we say we expect better behavior but yet can’t carry it out ourselves?

These criticisms seem to be two things: one woman’s sour apples quest to slander a hometown hero, and a college student’s attempt to gain traction on a national headline for her own advancement. Both of these need to stop. And we need to stop holding our girls to a standard that we clearly aren’t willing to uphold for ourselves.

The most difficult thing about being a Southern born feminist is the balancing act of respecting tradition and also flying in the face of it. Pageants may not be my thing, but I respect those who choose to participate in them.

Feminism, real feminism, is about choices. If I’m a real feminist, I’ll allow my daughter to compete in pageants if she wants to.

If we are to be truly proud of Miss Cantrell, feminist or not, and celebrate that she is representing our community then we should address the Internet trolls who are slamming her. Both from far away and close at home. There is, ironically, no winning for our beauty queen in this moment if we do not. There is no winning for any of our girls if we do not.

UPDATE: The ladies of The View should also be ashamed of themselves. How dare they think they are doing anything progressive for women by bashing a nurse’s monologue? Also- I’m going to disagree that giving a speech isn’t a talent. I give them often and I STILL get nervous before each one! To be able to speak in front of a group like that, on a national stage, is a talent. And God Bless our nurses, I don’t even know how one could think it’s appropriate to criticize them.

Love to all of y’all,

Molly

All photos of Betty Cantrell are from the Miss Georgia Facebook page