Gabriela Women’s Party has got the resigned Miss Philippines Earth Imelda Bautista Schweighart on their side on hosting of the Miss Universe pageant in the Philippines this January.
The controversial beauty queen shared her experience in joining a beauty pageant which she “felt exploited like pigs being sold in the market.” She also questioned the need of having a swimsuit competition in the pageant.
Imelda wrote: “Kudos Gabriela! Im with you. You are right.
“I remember wearing my two piece with the rest of the candidates backstage held here in the Philippines, the recent international pageant i was in.
We were like meat waiting for our turn to strut our stuff just to surpass the segment. I cannot deny the look in these girls faces backstage and the act we have to put out there on stage. It was the time where i realized it the most, when we went out for the audience and it was almost all men in a private setting show while we women felt so darn exploited like pigs being sold in the market.
“I do understand why theres such segment to see the beauty of the woman. But it doesn’t feel right anymore.. People have developed malice and perverseness. Some are using pageants as an opportunity to do prostitution as well. It is no longer in my mind a noble act.
“Only if, you use that platform to declare an important message because the microphone is like a trumpet, its either whatever platform you choose to declare that message so that you wont feel all kinds of losses when you didn’t play their dirty game right. Because that is not the purpose you joined.
“It has come, i am over it. And i wouldn’t want to encourage young women to join pageants. Some has good intentions but the rest of what’s happening inside and the delivery of message the unconscious mind performs isn’t helping make this earth a better place. It becomes a selection of beautiful women, fake or natural, to be treated as “materials” just like what Gabriela said.”
Imelda became controversial last year when she tendered her resignation as Miss Philippines-Earth days after a video circulated online, showing her giving an apparent affront to 2016 Miss Earth Katherine Espin.
On Wednesday (January 11), Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas announced that they are not in favor in hosting of the Miss Universe pageant in the Philippines, calling it an objectification of women and a cover-up of the country’s societal problems.
Brosas said the hosting was a “manipulative and deceptive tool that projects an image of peace and stability to cover up the creeping influence of fascist repression of poor women’s rising protests.” Brosas also added that the beauty pageant is an “expensive exercise to lull the people and the international audience into a false sense of wellbeing and celebration” amid problems in society such as unfair trade relations and the plunder of natural resources in the countries the beauty queens represent. Brosas said the militant women’s party-list group opposes any form of pageants and festival that objectify women.
