The Miss Germantown Pageant is an organization on a mission to empower women. My involvement with pageants began as a college student right here in Memphis, Tennessee. At that time, pageants provided me with a way to help put myself through school. Using scholarship money from the scholarship pageants I competed in, combined with my talent as a feature twirler at the University of Memphis, left me debt free at graduation. Providing opportunities for young women to receive scholarship money towards education is extremely important to the Miss Germantown Organization and me. Education is an essential piece in the process of empowering women.
While empowerment is the primary goal of the Miss Germantown Pageant, there are other aspects our pageant provides that foster the positive development of our contestants. Society will always have those who feel like pageants place a negative stigma on women or have become outdated and I challenge those few to take a deeper look into what many call the “Pageant World”. Young women who compete in pageants learn to stand up for their own personal platforms and beliefs. Which is why another important part of our mission is to stand behind these women, and promote the true purpose of pageants, pageant girls and the pageant world.
If you look up the definition of pageantry it can mean many things… an elaborate display or ceremony, spectacle, grandeur, flourish, glitter, drama, showiness, but those definitions were created hundreds of years ago in reference to ceremonies or jubilees put on for the kings and queens of the 17th century. Today, pageantry is not necessarily an elaborate display, but platform to display the many talents and strengths of the contestants who compete in them. Young women competing in a pageant today do not sign up because they believe their looks are flawless or they yearn for validation from a panel of judges that they have achieved some sort of physical perfection. No. These women are competing for the job of being a titleholder and in order to get that job they have to believe in themselves.
Young women who compete in pageants develop a confidence and resilience that is unstoppable. This confidence builds as they go through a rigorous one on one interview to explain who they are and what they believe in. It strengthens each time they walk on stage and share a bit of themselves with the audience and it then becomes a permanent part of them when their name is not called and they try again. As they make new friends with other contestants they learn about different platforms, which deepens their knowledge of art, music, politics, science, and humanities.
With the tremendous amount of stress on women today to be perfect and never make a mistake a final part of our mission for the Miss Germantown Pageant is to inspire women to create their own definition of what it means to be beautiful. Women who participate in pageants are beautiful not only because of how they present themselves on the outside, but beautiful because they stand up for themselves and what they believe in. They support and encourage each other to become fierce leaders that will take a stand and make this world a better place. Whether they win or not, they accomplish what they set out to do. A pageant girl is beautiful because she seeks validation only from herself and strives to define the place of a woman in society as being well rounded, confident, and unstoppable.
The Miss Germantown Organization is committed to empowering women by securing scholarship money for education. Dedicated to standing behind our contestants while they redefine what it means to beautiful. Determined to define pageantry as a platform where young women can become a better version of who they already are.
Believe in yourself and the real beauty begins,
Suzanne
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