Miss Landmine Pageant: Empowerment, or Mockery?

by Michelle . · 2009-08-04 07:00:00 UTC
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Not directly genocide related, but in the category of survivors of egregious human rights abuses (and in a place that has experienced genocide):

The government of Cambodia announced the cancellation of the Miss Landmine 2009 beauty pageant, scheduled to take place later this week. According to the government, the event is an insult to the disabled, and "would make a mockery of Cambodia's land mine victims."

The Miss Landmine Manifesto, however, states that its purpose is to empower female survivors and promote landmine awareness, to "challenge inferiority and/or guilt complexes that hinder creativity," and to "question established concepts of physical perfection."

I'm typically in favor of this sort of empowerment, especially when it comes to questioning "established concepts of physical perfection," but I can also see where the Cambodian government is coming from. I also think that if the women want to be a part of this, then let them --- who is anyone else to decide what their message is about their own bodies?

In a post on the Political Minefields blog in March, though, Dr. Jean Chapman counters, "Empowerment is when an amputee is chosen as the most beautiful women in Angola because she is beautiful. That implies that everyone is invited to compete: amputees, non-amputees, and women of all races. That was not the case."

But what do y'all think?

Michelle . has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns.
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