Let's Swim In The Tears Of Men Mourning The Loss Of The Miss America Swimsuit Contest!

Today, ABC and Gretchen Carlson announced that the Miss America Pageant, which people somewhere probably still watch, will no longer have swimsuit or evening gown competitions, and also will no longer judge women on their appearances like cattle at auction:

"We are no longer a pageant," Gretchen Carlson, the first former Miss America to be named chair of the Board of Trustees of the Miss America Organization, said on "GMA." "We are a competition."

Rather than being judged on their looks, contestants will now be judged on things like intellect, personal character and charitable behavior:

We're changing out of our swimsuits and into a whole new era #byebyebikini  #MissAmerica2019   pic.twitter.com/pgyHotpoYz 

— Miss America Org (@MissAmericaOrg) June 5, 2018 

Given that this comes, oh, 50 years after the big Miss America protest -- you know, the one where they burned bras, among other things, and then everyone was all "FEMINISTS BURN BRAAAAAAAS!" forever? -- some might say they are a bit slow on the uptake. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, others aren't quite "ready."

Let's laugh at them!

This guy thinks women were having a contest in which they are judged based on their beauty for their own benefit :

So by eliminating judging based on appearance, as well as removing the swimsuit competition, Miss America will end up being a very boring version of "America's Got Talent".

Why can't women have a contest based on appearance if they want one?

— Mark Kern (@Grummz) June 5, 2018 

There's already a contest where women are judged based on their appearances. It is called LIFE.

This guy is just sad FOR AMERICA:

BREAKING: Miss America has canceled the swimsuit portion of the contest, and won't judge on physical appearance anymore. It's a sad day for the USA. https: //t.co/Vhdng2rKpj 

— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) June 5, 2018 

Not to be a nudge here, Mr. or Ms. Congeniality, but Miss America practically invented participation trophies:

The Miss America Pageant will be getting rid of swimsuits and will not judge based off looks anymore. This is because “We are living in a different era”, #MeToo , and the change of empowerment to women.

Sounds like participation trophies are coming out so everyone wins.

— Students For Trump (@TrumpStudents) June 5, 2018 

BOO EMPOWERMENT TO WOMEN! BOOOOOOO!!!!!

Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars is particularly distressed. If you can't judge women based on their appearances, what can you even judge them on? 

Piers Morgan, who doesn't even go here, was perhaps the most distressed of all, writing an open letter to Gretchen Carlson about how she's making it so no one can even appreciate female beauty anymore, and how she doesn't even care about the dumb ladies what aren't good at anything but being pretty! They just want to give the nice men boners, and mean Gretchen Carlson won't let them!

Their dream has been quite simple: to be crowned the most beautiful woman in America.

They’re not trying to be America’s best brain surgeon; if they were, they’d go to college and study neuro-science.

They just want people to look at them on TV and go ‘Phwoar!’

PHWOAR!

And what’s so wrong with that?

Why is celebrating beauty, for purely beauty’s sake, now deemed so offensive?

The dictionary definition of beauty is: ‘A combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.’

In other words, you look at something beautiful and it makes you feel good.

That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Have we really come to a place where to appreciate a woman’s physical beauty is a heinous crime?

It goes on and on like that. It is a very long article, replete with myriad slippery slope arguments:

And if we have, where does this new puritanical nonsense end?

Will cheerleaders at sports venues now have to be banned?

Will People Magazine have to stop its Most Beautiful Woman & Sexiest Man Alive specials?

I’m sure there will be some radical feminists furious it’s still called ‘Miss America’ at all on the basis that ‘Miss’ is a sexist term that sounds a bit like an abbreviated version of ‘misogynist’.

 First of all. Given all the shit that's come out recently about how NFL cheerleaders are barely making minimum wage, and all the sexual harassment they have to deal with -- yes, maybe we shouldn't have that anymore. It's one thing in colleges and high schools where they're actually competing themselves , but standing around just shaking pom-poms and yelling "Go Team!" while being hot? That seems unnecessary. And, frankly, kind of weird.

Also, literally no one is mad at the term "Miss" because it "sounds like an abbreviated version of misogynist." We switched to "Ms." back in the '70s -- so our moms tell us -- because it was ridiculous that a woman's marital status was part of her honorific and a man's was not. Nothing to do with the word "misogynist." That isn't even clever.

But anyway, back to the darlings of Twitter, like this pony who is STEAMING that the pageant contestants won't be judged on their looks anymore:

Miss America pageant head: "No more swimsuit competition"

Me: 🤔 Another tradition dead...well fine, maybe it is a bit objectifying--

Miss America pageant head: "Because we won't judge contestants on physical beauty anymore"

Me:  pic.twitter.com/breszcfrnG 

— Jermey Light (@mahaveez) June 5, 2018 

And this dude, standing on a street corner screaming about SOSHALISM!

not based on appearance???What the Fuck is the point then? Reward people for doing nothing? For unhealthy Dangerous eating habits? Sounds MIGHTY SOCIALISTIC TO ME DEMOCRATS. FASCISM.

— DavidRedhawk (@DavidHDeal) June 5, 2018 

This one hates spelling bees!

And this guy is mad we are not making him muffins anymore! I guess!

Feminists ruin everything , they can't even cook a decent batch of muffins anymore and now they ruined beauty pageants.

If I want to appreciate a woman's brains then I need a zombie to bite me first 🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️ #Feminazis  #freetommy June 9th we need support in the UK

— Dean Nomselena (@ribbons1978) June 5, 2018 

This guy thinks you vote for Miss America, like it's "American Idol":

So you’re basically taking away the reason why people vote

— Cole DiNofa (@disturbed_one98) June 5, 2018 

Won't SOMEONE think of the men?

Miss America & Miss World & Miss Universe ARE ABOUT BEAUTY not intelligence, not character, not talent. BEAUTY. What is wrong with that? Cannot we men be left with SOMETHING about BEAUTY?

— Melgrum (@mel022017) June 5, 2018 

The likelihood that any of these men are actually sitting around jerking off to the Miss America pageant these days, when they can easily see any number of women in bathing suits (and less!) on their computers, is practically nil. They're not mad, really, that Miss America is taking their boners away -- they simply fear a world where parading a bunch of women onstage to be judged for their bikini bods is no longer considered mainstream and normal. Living in a society where it's normal do this to women but not to men -- there is a Mr. America, but it's a bodybuilding competition and definitely not quite the same thing -- is a sign that they still hold power in a way we do not. Getting rid of it signifies more than a loss of boners, but a loss of power. 

As nice as it is to bathe in the tears of a bunch of middle-aged men who are mad they'll "never again" get to see a woman in a bathing suit, let's be real: swimsuit and evening gown competition or not, it is positively ridiculous that Miss America is even still a thing. It should not be a thing. It should go away. It is weird and outdated and makes about as much sense for the world we currently live in as an ad for 1-800-COLLECT.

As many points I'd like to give them for taking this long overdue step, it comes on the heels of pageant organizers getting into a bit of hot water for referring to former Miss Americas as "cunts":  

So we're not quite there yet.

[ ABC News / Daily Mail ]

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