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Is it Miss LSE or crass misogyny?
Students unions up in arms over ‘cattle market’ approach to women in London’s colleges
IN the best ballgowns and heels student loans can buy, the contestants in a controversial beauty pageant get ready for the stage.
The boisterous admirers who will cheer them down the runway might otherwise have been expected to be spending their evenings with a tin of baked beans and their noses in lecture notes.
Instead, they are packed inside the glamorous, ice-cool Crystal Club in the West End as the search to find the best-looking girl on campus unfolds.
This is the beauty contest with a difference, a pageant which has left Bloomsbury’s studentland bitterly divided, pitching anti-“cattle market” protesters who object to “objectifying” women against those who say they just want to have fun.
No brain-boggling University Challenge questions allowed, Miss University London is currently in the heat stages and building to a grand finale early next year.
Miss LSE was picked at a pageant last month, Miss SOAS at another on Tuesday night and next Tuesday, judges will gather again to choose their favourite undergraduate from University College London.
The 15 contenders were spotted by scouts in library squares and student parties.
The fervour inside Crystal Club may be matched with agitation in the street outside.
The competition, run by events company 121 Entertainment, has already been hit by student union placard protests.
Motions have been passed at student unions at all of the main colleges and the customary Facebook protest petition has been created.
“We come to university to be judged on academic ability and not on external characteristics,” said Ruby Buckley, women’s officer at the LSE union.
It’s the same view at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) where women’s officer Elly James said yesterday: “It is like a cattle market. One of the things was that the contestants had to have their waists and breasts measured.
“I come from quite a rural area and that’s what they do to animals.”
And there are similar rumblings at UCL, where protester Jude Flynn said: “It is despicable that the organisers and participants of the Miss UCL competition consider it acceptable that intelligent and independent young women, studying at one of the best universities in the UK, are to be treated as objects to be judged solely by their attractiveness and sex appeal.”
Miss University 2008 is no small-fry operation knocked up at the back of the student bar.
Accountancy student Keelin Gavaghan, the current Miss London School of Economics, said: “I was scouted on a Monday night out at Tiger Tiger in Haymarket.
“The night was so much fun. I didn’t get the impression that anybody was desperate to win – it was more about having a great time and raising money for Breast Cancer.”
She added: “I think what the people protesting are forgetting is that we are at university and that, although studying is extremely important, this spells fun – which is exactly what the pageant was about.”
Christian Emile, one of the creators from 121 Entertainment, said: “The feminists believe we are objectifying women but if you speak to any of the contestants I’m sure they wouldn’t feel the same way.
“They would tell you that it’s empowering. I believe people are taking it too seriously – at the end of the day, it’s only a bit of fun.” |
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