There She Goes... A Trailblazing Beauty Queen

Please note: This appeared on The Huffington Post on March 15, 2011 as "There She Goes: A Trailblazing, Feminist Beauty Queen."

This week women around the world observed the 100th celebration of International Women's Day.  We honored female trailblazers and leaders.

One woman not discussed was Jean Bartel, Miss America 1943, who passed away on Sunday night. Some of you may think that beauty queens aren't female leaders, and that they certainly aren't trailblazers.  But Jean Bartel was both.  Her reign illustrates how the Miss America Pageant was historically a transformative, feminist enterprise for American women.

When the Pageant started as a bathing beauty contest in 1921, no "respectable" women participated.  It wasn't until 1935 when the formidable Lenora Slaughter (a female leader in her own right) took over the Pageant that it began to become an endeavor for the nation's "ideal" young women.  Slaughter insisted that the girls competing could be something more than pretty faces, and she went on to establish some of the most distinctive and enduring characteristics of today's Miss America Pageant.  In 1938 Slaughter made the talent portion of the competition mandatory; in 1941 she got the name officially changed to “The Miss America Pageant;” and in 1945 she gave out the first scholarship to the winner. All of Slaughter’s effort were a calculated attempt to attract “ladies” to participate in the Pageant.

And Jean Bartel was one of those ladies. In 1942 she entered the Miss California pageant, after learning that one of the national pageant judges was a Broadway financier.  Bartel wanted to be a Broadway star and she figured this would be her chance to show of her singing chops, thanks to the talent portion of the Pageant.  She entered the state pageant-- won-- and a month later traveled to Atlantic City where she also won. The rest is history.

Jean Bartel made history for the Miss America Pageant, and pageantry in general, in two ways (all while selling more war bonds than any other individual in 1943).  First, after her win, Bartel said she would not pose for pictures in her bathing suit.  She was quoted as saying, "I use a bathing suit to go swimming in." For an organization that started out as a bathing beauty contest, and was sponsored by Catalina, a bathing suit company, this stance certainly upset the apple cart.  Bartel's actions paved the way for Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1951, to take a stand for "propriety," and refuse to be crowned in her bathing suit.  Betbeze's decision was particularly fateful, as it led to Catalina pulling their sponsorship and starting their own beauty pageant-- what is known today as the Miss USA Pageant, part of the Miss Universe system, now owned by Donald Trump.

It is also thanks in large part to Bartel that the Miss America Pageant is reportedly the largest source of scholarship money for only women anywhere in the world. Yes, Miss America is a pageant, but it is also a scholarship program, and Jean Bartel was instrumental in that transformation.  When she was crowned Bartel was a student at UCLA.  During her year she met with various sorority sisters who suggested that the Pageant could help support women in earning their college degrees.  Bartel mentioned this to Slaughter who awarded the first scholarship shortly afterward to Miss America 1945, Bess Myerson (also the first, and only, Jewish Miss America).  

Imagine funds available in the 1940s to help women pursue higher education-- this was cutting edge at the time.  Recent Miss Americas, and their fellow contestants, have used winnings to pay for undergraduate and graduate degrees, and to specifically pay for medical school and law school tuition bills.  Today this may seem less extraordinary than it was in the 1960s and 1970s when women simply did not pursue graduate degrees in large numbers, both because of limited opportunities and finances. Miss America 1974, Rebecca King, was able to pay for law school because of her scholarship winnings, and is credited as being one of the first Miss Americas to use her winnings for graduate education. Yes, she had to wear a bathing suit to get the money, but thanks to Bartel and Betbeze at least she didn't have to wear it while being crowned.

With so many more opportunities available to women today-- both in higher education and in entertainment-- it's easy for many to dismiss the Miss America Pageant.  But Jean Bartel reminds us, particularly as we think about women's roles around the world, that it hasn't always been so easy.  While parts of the Pageant may seem a bit outdated today (like the swimsuit competition), those features evolved over time and women fought hard for progress when it came to baring their bathing suit bodies and supporting their minds. Who knows what changes the next seventy years will bring, and who the trailblazer who brings them will be.

Childhood is a Buffet

I love a good Sunday brunch buffet. I often sample lots of dishes, and then go back to get a larger serving of my favorite.

When people ask me about afterschool activities for their elementary school-age kids-- how many they should be in, which activity will help them get into college someday, etc.-- I explain that they should approach those afterschool hours the same way they approach that Sunday buffet.  Children should sample a lot of different things so that they can figure out their favorites.

Middle childhood, which is the time between ages 6-12 (or, for a rough equivalent, the elementary school years), is the time for exposure and exploration.  Parents make choices about which activities their kids should explore based on their own experiences and preferences.  Maybe mom played the violin, so she wants her daughter to as well; or, perhaps she never played a musical instrument and that's the reason she's so adamant that her kids learn to play music.  Other families emphasize physical fitness, so participation on an athletic team is very important.  Within those categories of music and sports there are more choices. A child can play a string instrument, or the piano, drums, recorder, or clarinet, and the list goes on.  Athletics is even more complex-- will a child play a team sport or an individual one? Will it be a popular sport, like soccer or tennis, or a more rarefied one, like lacrosse or squash?

Of course, this isn't an either/or enterprise. Many kids play sports and a musical instrument and do something else (like drawing, Mandarin lessons, theater, or chess, and again the list goes on). One mom evocatively described her parenting strategy to me by saying she is striving to raise "little Renaissance men." But not all boys will grow up to be Renaissance men and not all kids are destined to be "well-rounded."  While these are worthwhile goals, parents must also listen to their children.

Kids are an integral part of this process. In some cases, children will approach their parents with an activity that they would like to try out. Perhaps a friend at school is a skateboarder, or a girl saw Nastia Liukin win the gold in the Olympics and she wants to try to be a gymnast. If a child expresses interest in a particular activity it's a good idea to explore a class in that, or something very similar (perhaps biking if you don't like skateboarding, or dance or cheerleading if you don't like gymnastics).  Other times, like when an activity is parent-driven and a child wants out, or even wants more of it, parents should listen to their child's desires, especially before investments of time and money get too high.  What's important is that kids are exposed to a wide range of options when they are young so they can explore, be creative, and start to gain mastery.  This helps insure that kids will be intrinsically motivated and hopefully develop a genuine interest and passion in a given area.

Of course, what parents choose to expose their kids to is ultimately shaped by a variety of individual and societal factors.  To continue the buffet metaphor, not everyone will have grits or lox on their Sunday buffet, but most people will have eggs and bacon (some will have it free-range and organic, and others won't). For example, in certain parts of the country ice hockey is more popular, and in others Pop Warner football dominates.  On top of regional preferences parental background matters. More educated parents may shy away from activities they consider dangerous, like boxing, and instead push weekend math classes.  And parents of boys and girls tend to favor different sorts of activities, even within the same family.

There is no right way or wrong way to make these choices so long as you listen to your child and your own common sense.  There is no magic number of activities or number of hours of participation that will help your little one get into an Ivy League school ten years down the road.  There is no equation that tells us whether or not your child will rebel later in life is he or she goes to ballet instead of karate.  But there is a way to keep childhood fun, and full of creativity and exploration, while still training kids for the next steps in their lives. By allowing kids to explore within a structured set of choices, they'll be able to know what they really love as they move into middle school and high school, where those specific choices start to matter more. Until then, enjoy your waffles, pancakes, hash browns, Eggs Benedict, or whatever else you and your kids prefer!

Cinderella Ate My Pageant Tiara

It's Wednesday-- one of my favorite TV nights. But, alas, no new episode of Toddlers & Tiaras tonight.  This post is in honor of the conclusion of the third season of the TLC hit.

Everyone who has been making money off of child beauty pageants, like TLC, owes a huge debt of gratitude to JonBenét Ramsey.  As morbid as it sounds, without her tragic death, it's unlikely the media coverage would have exploded the way it has over the past decade.  I've often said that if JonBenét had been a competitive cheerleader, cheer would have been vilified for many of the same reasons-- its hyper-sexualization and focus on physical appearance/beauty. (Check out this interesting piece on young girls who do competitive cheer that ESPN The Magazine ran last month. A coach is quoted: "For parents who wouldn't want their daughter to do a very unisex sport and miss out on the girliness of other activities, like pageants, this is a good balance.") Ditto for baton twirling, rhythmic gymnastics, and the like.

But JonBenét did do pageants, so when the talented Peggy Orenstein decided to take on today's princess-industrial complex, she naturally turned to the much-maligned activity. In her latest bestseller, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Orenstein visited a child beauty pageant with Taralyn Eschberger, a two-time star of Toddlers & Tiaras (if you want to follow Taralyn's pageant career, you can via Twitter or Facebook).  While Orenstein only described her attendance at a particular pageant, she presents a more nuanced view of the participants' families and her own reactions than any other account I've read-- consistent with some of my own work and writing on pageants. 

I consider myself a child beauty pageant expert because: 1) I've attended 19 child beauty pageants and formally interviewed over 40 pageant moms; 2) I've seen, and own, almost every child beauty pageant documentary made (one gap in my library is Little Miss Perfect, because I don't get We); and, 3) I grew up around the pageant world, though I never competed (Why? Click here and here for more info).

And, Orenstein gets it mostly right. (One notable exception-- on page 93 she says Taralyn stands with her feet in "third position." Any good child beauty pageant expert knows that is called "pretty feet!" Or, if you kick it old-school pageant style, "model stance." I know she would have picked up the lingo if she'd gone to other pageants!) She not only presents a more complete view of the Eschberger family, making visible her older brother who is developmentally disabled and clearly an important part of the family despite his invisibility in the TLC coverage, but Orenstein also shows how a mom can get "sucked into" this world. She writes that while at the pageant she couldn't help but think that her own daughter, Daisy, could do this. Orenstein also talks about being impressed by some of the contestants' ability to mimic their parents, which is quite developmentally mature given their ages.  Being simultaneously attracted yet repulsed by the magnetic and complex world of child beauty pageants is normal if you spend longer than a few hours critiquing them on television.  It's easy to forget that every contestant's family has a story-- though perhaps not as dramatic as the Eschbergers'-- and many of those familial tales are ignored or edited for effect for media consumption.

For this, and many other reasons (like it's funny, well-written, thoughtful, honest, and informative, using a lot of relevant social science research), you should check out Cinderella Ate My Daughter.  You should also check out TLC's latest take on sometimes-disturbing parenting techniques, and princess culture.  Tune in Mondays at 9:30 for the new series Outrageous Kid Parties (last week's Princess episode was truly over the top). I'm sure the backstories of many of these families are also complicated, but, let's face it, complicated doesn't always sell well on TV. We need writers to present the messier reality of growing up today.

T(w)een Idols

Are your fingers ready? Voting starts for American Idol this week (with a new option to vote via Facebook, in addition to calling in or voting by texting) and the Top 24 seems to be full of talent.

It also happens to be one of the youngest groups yet.  Thanks to John Kubicek's calculations we know that this is a slightly younger Top 24, on average, at 21.25.  The eldest contestants are 26, so there is a decade between the babes and their older competitors.

AI made headlines this summer when it announced they were lowering the age limit and 15-year-olds could audition.  One of those 15-year-olds is Thia Megia, part of the Top 24 (though she has turned 16 since her initial audition).  Lauren Alaina is also 16, and considered an early frontrunner.

American Idol isn't the only reality show on television with increasingly younger contestants who are top competitors.  Former Idol judge Paul Abdul's recent show, Live to Dance-- which rather quickly came and went-- awarded first prize to 10- and 11-year-old ballroom dancers Amanda and D'Angelo (who are amazing and adorable, check them out).  The first runner-up was 11-year-old Kendall Glover.  They beat out an 83-year-old dancer, along with many professional dancers in their 20s and 30s.

And this year the oldest competitive reality show of them all, the Miss America Pageant, crowned a 17-year-old.  While in the early days of the Pageant there were younger winners, since the introduction of age limits in 1938, Teresa Scanlan is the youngest to take the crown. On one of the beauty pageant message boards I read, posters refer to the current Miss America as "the fetus."

Americans have loved precocious performing children since the days of vaudeville. Historian Gary Cross has written about two different types of kids adults love-- the cute and the cool.  Today's performing kids manage to capture both sentiments.

Given the historical record I'm reluctant to say that young performers, and winners, are a new trend.  What I can say is that these recent success stories are linked to children's tendency to specialize at an early age.  Part of the appeal of Amanda and D'Angelo is that it is rare to see ballroom dancers with such fantastic ballroom and dance technique at age ten.  They didn't get to this level by playing soccer and piano afterschool in addition to their dance classes.  Moreover, this isn't Thia Megia's first time on a reality show; at 14 she competed on America's Got Talent.  I'm guessing she didn't spend her time learning tennis or the violin in between appearing on two of the most popular talent competitions-- she's been singing.  Finally, Miss America Teresa Scanlan was homeschooled until she was 16, which allowed her to devote her time to pageant prep (she started competing at age 13) and develop her musical talent on the piano.  Early specialization, which means more hours of instruction and practice earlier in life, allowed all of these t(w)eens to become better younger.

All of these young people are definitely talented and they have worked for their successes.  Hopefully they won't regret all those years of practice for a singular goal when they are 29-- like another t(w)een idol, Britney Spears.  I'm guessing neither Thia nor Lauren will be singing "...Baby One More Time" on Wednesday night's Idol show.  Will you be voting for either of them?

[PS. I've written elsewhere about the labor laws that protect child performers, and how those laws need to be tightened for kids on reality TV shows, which is very relevant here. If you are interested check out my USA Today piece or my Contexts piece.]

Diving into Coaching

Greg Louganis, arguably the greatest diver of all time, and one of the greatest Olympians of all time, just started coaching young divers.  His accomplishments are extraordinary, but as many know, having superior skills does not always transfer to superior teaching.

Louganis' skills as a coach are his knowledge of diving technique and his ability to teach mental awareness and toughness.  He emphasizes basic mechanics and does not allow a diver to move on until they have mastered skills.  Louganis also says that practice is more important than competition and he has each of his students keep a journal where they can reflect on training and goals.  Louganis reports, "A lot of parents say they're on board with it... we'll see how well they can hang in there."

Parents should trust the knowledge of a teacher or coach and be patient with them in producing results and improving technique, even if that coach isn't as accomplished as Greg Louganis.  Tiger Mom Amy Chua got it right (at least in this instance!) when she said parents should not criticize a teacher/coach in front of a child.

That said, there are areas every parent should think about before enrolling their child in an afterschool activity.  Based on years researching various afterschool activities, I recommend parents investigate the background of potential teachers/coaches in three areas: expertise, teaching, and safety.  With some of these questions you should ask the teacher, or owner, directly.  For others you will want to ask around town.  Though beware listening to everything a few disgruntled parents say; however if many parents have negative things to say you should pay attention!  These questions may seem like obvious ones, but when it comes to kids' activities, they aren't often asked-- and that needs to change especially given the level of competition and the number of injuries currently observed in children's activities.

1) Expertise- You should make sure the teacher or coach has in-depth knowledge of the activity and some credentials to be teaching the activity to others.

If you ever watch So You Think You Can Dance you know that Nigel Lythgoe is constantly complaining about dance teachers who do not know technique and are making a lot of money telling people they can dance. Unqualified teachers make it difficult for the qualified teachers who do know technique to succeed.  When I was studying soccer I interviewed one business owner who proudly told me that because he is from Latin America parents assume he is good at soccer. In fact, he is a terrible player; instead of playing up skills, he plays up his accent which he claimed parents responded to well. This owner did hire qualified coaches, but it's easy to imagine this situation going a different way.

You should exercise your right as a parent to protect your child and find out the answers to the following questions:

• Does my child's potential teacher/coach have technical ability in the subject matter? 
• Can they demonstrate fluent knowledge of technique?
• Were they themselves a diver/chess player/dancer/football player, etc.? 
• What do they know about the mechanics of how the activity works (either knowledge of mental processes or, more importantly, awareness of physiology and how the body best works)? 
• What formal credentials do they have to promote themselves as teachers/coaches-- college degrees, training certifications, etc.?

2) Teaching- Whatever the activity is, those who work with young people should have knowledge of how to teach young people-- this includes understanding learning techniques and children's social dynamics.  This is especially true in competitive environments.  Teachers and coaches should have some knowledge of how to deal with self-esteem issues and how to mediate conflict between children, for example.

Spending time around academic afterschool activities, like enrichment classes and chess clubs, I witnessed many skilled chess and math experts who were not trained as teachers. When children cried, gave up, had short attention spans, or fought with one another, the teachers often did not know how to respond to the situation.

While of course there is not one right way to deal with any of these situations, classroom teachers learned when they were students themselves about different techniques for dealing with children at specific age levels.  Afterschool teachers and coaches would benefit from similar instruction, which would help improve their teaching and children's experiences.  Just as our society doesn't allow classroom teachers or daycare providers to be untrained and uncertified, we should be sure that those who work with our children in the afterschool hours are equally able.

3) Safety- This may seem obvious, but you would be surprised how many assumptions parents make, if only because things seem legitimate.

• Do you know if your child's teacher or coach has ever been convicted of a crime, especially one involving a child? Not all states mandate background checks for teachers and coaches.  If you live in a state that doesn't, you should know that many of the insurance companies who insure athletic clubs/studios/gyms do have strict guidelines.  
• Does the program have insurance? You can find out by asking who insures an organization; if the group is uninsured this should be a red flag about the legitimacy of the business (perhaps even its business standing. like filing taxes). 
• Are teachers CPR certified? Are the physical surroundings acceptable for the physical nature of the activity (like the type of floor or the security/stability of equipment)? In addition to legal issues, you should also think about basic safety!

Remember, just because someone opens a gym or studio in a strip mall does not mean they are qualified, even on in these most basic areas. One of the programs I observed was not properly run in terms of insurance, taxes, and teacher safety.  These omissions were not committed out of malice on the part of the owner (instead they were related to financial constraints), but parents nevertheless should endeavor to be aware of these issues so they can protect their children.

While, thankfully, I am not aware of anyone I ever worked with being convicted of any crimes involving children, they do happen. Just this month a gymnastics coach in Arizona was arrested on suspicion of child molestation (though not in the gym itself).  Less than a year ago another gymnastics coach was arrested in Connecticut on similar charges.

In many families the three areas of expertise, teaching, and safety will be weighted in different ways. Some may value safety more, while others place less emphasis on expertise. Every parent will make the right decision for his/her child, but that decision should be made based on as much information as possible. Sadly, nail salons are better regulated and have more safety requirements than gyms, studios, and practice spaces where children can die or suffer catastrophic injury.

Parents, always, always ask questions and do your due diligence before signing your child up-- and once everything checks out, you can rest easier in deferring to the judgment of the teacher or coach.  Who knows, your child may end up learning from an Olympian!

Ranking Gladwell

Cars. Colleges. Countries.  These are just a few of the things we routinely rank-- and they are the three examples Malcolm Gladwell draws upon in his most recent New Yorker piece, "The Order of Things." (I'm assuming the alliteration is coincidental.)

His argument, in a nutshell, is that in any ranking system the formula matters.  That means both the variables in the formula that produces the rank and who the people are who write these formulas.  People are inevitably influenced by their own biases, as are the formulas and the rankings themselves. Nothing groundbreaking there.  Besides the element of, "So, what?," what I dislike most about the article is that no alternative is suggested.

The reality is, whether we like it or not, we are always going to have rankings.  And, with better technology available, it is both easier to quantify a range of things and rank them, and to spread the news of those rankings.  We famously now have national rankings for 11-year-old basketball players at sites like The Hoop Scoop and HoopsUSA.

Speaking of children, from the moment they enter this world they are ranked and ordered, by their Apgar score.  After that they routinely receive a number that represents their percentile rank for height/length, weight, and size of head at doctor's visits. Soon enough these kids enter the educational system and they receive percentiles that rank them based on what goes on inside those heads.  And, of course, then comes the all-important SAT score, and the list goes on.

Being ranked is a part of modern life.  Understanding what those numbers and rankings actually mean should be our goal, and list makers should be as transparent as possible about how numbers are produced.  Turning away from rankings isn't realistic at all.  And we should continue to study rankings, especially how institutions respond to them and how those numeric signifiers can actually shape behavior (For great work on this subject check out the work of sociologists Michael Sauder and Wendy Espeland.  Sauder is someone Gladwell should have spoken with-- though, full disclosure he is my officemate, so I'm a bit biased!).

I think Malcolm Gladwell is one of our best writers social scientists-- I certainly rank him in my top three.  But overall, this particular effort, by my evaluation, doesn't rate very high in the order of his work.

Bad*ss (Women) Athletes

After getting some feedback on my blog post on the Iowa State Wrestling Championships, I expanded it into a more complete discussion on Title IX, including a bit on boys playing on girls' field hockey teams. Check it out on The Huffington Post. Please leave comments and share by clicking through!

In related news, I am just so impressed by two female athletes getting a lot of press this week.

1) Justine Siegal- She became the first female to ever pitch batting practice in MLB this week (both for the Indians and also for the A's). Siegal has also coached all-men's baseball teams and played on them. Not only that, she chose to wear a patch to honor Christina Taylor Green, the wonderful child gunned down so horrifically in the Arizona shootings last month. And, on top of all this, Justine's daughter was there to watch her mom pitch in spring training. Like I said, bad*ss.

2) Ida Keeling- She is 95 and runs 60 meters in 29.86 seconds. I can't do that now. Like I said, bad*ss.

Do you know of any other bad*ss and stellar female athletes doing exceptional things?