Should bikini shows be eliminated from beauty pageants?

While the Miss America pageant will drop the bikini competition from 2019, the organizers of the Miss Vietnam pageant announced that they will not.

The Department of Performing Arts (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) said it will seek opinions on whether to replace the bikini competition with sportswear.

Contestants perform in bikinis at the 2016 Miss Vietnam pageant. Photo: TTD

* Writer NGUYEN QUYNH TRANG:

Feel free to take it offindulgent with lust

Many negative changes have happened to beauty pageants, making it easy for people to think that if contestants are comfortable with taking off and showing off their bodies, things related to lust will also be easy.

"Sexual harassment", "buying and selling" have occurred and have been reported in beauty contests in our country.

In addition, because of the emphasis on physical beauty in swimsuit competitions, attention to the contestants' character, talent, and intelligence is reduced.

Since then, a large number of people have thought of beauty pageants (which are increasingly organized) as a commercial selection of beautiful women, not simply a selection of a woman who is typical of intelligence, virtue, full of positive qualities and abilities with a beautiful appearance to ensure the true title of "beauty queen".

Eliminating the swimsuit competition means promoting the dignity of women in beauty pageants is the right thing to do.

* Actress THU QUYNH:

Eliminate swimsuit competitionis a pity

I participated in the Miss Vietnam 2008 contest. Although I, a 19-20 year old girl, was very shy about this competition, I would have felt a bit regretful if the pageant had omitted the swimsuit competition.

Personally, I love to look at the sexiness of beautiful women with all my respect for that beauty.

Even as an audience, in every beauty contest, besides the evening gown and national costume competitions, the swimsuit competition is always the part I look forward to.

As for some complaints about revealing and provocative swimsuit performances, I think it can be resolved by the organizers choosing costumes that are not too skimpy.

* Young man DANG TRAN QUAN (Hanoi):

Should beauty pageants be abolished?

I see that the controversy or criticism related to Miss Vietnam has never been about the bikini competition but about buying awards, harassment, or the "funny" behavior of the contestants.

Because beauty queens, after all, must have the golden body ratio, and this is most obvious in bikini competitions.

The most important thing for beauty pageants is the audience, how many people watch it, how many people interact with it.But anthropometric measurements mean little to the audience, they need something more visual, and the bikini competition solves that problem.

Beauty pageants are not competitions that honor the beauty of intelligence and personality. So the issue to be discussed is not whether to abolish the bikini competition or not, but whether beauty pageants are still relevant or not, should beauty pageants be abolished altogether?

Every year in Vietnam, there are 10-15 beauty queens that are pushed out, to the point that an average audience will not be able to remember all the beauty queens honored in the same year.

Beauty pageants now don't play much of a role except to introduce to the public a new face to represent brands, a face for advertising.

Beauty pageants now do not play much of a role except to bring to the public a new representative face for brands, a face for advertising.

* Doctor NGO DUC HUNG (author of Leave the Good Doctor Alone):

Saying bikini shows degrade women is an exaggeration.

Beauty contests must first show people the beauty that can be seen with the naked eye, then the beauty of intelligence and soul - things that are harder to see.

I see no reason to remove the bikini competition from beauty pageants. Simply put, the girls are beautiful and they have the right to show it off.

I don't find it convincing to say that we should give up bikini competitions to focus on evaluating women's beauty through their talent and soul.

This is a beauty pageant, not a talent contest.

As for the arguments of social activists that bikini competitions turn women into commodities or degrade women's dignity, I think they are exaggerating and speculating.

* Critic PHAM XUAN NGUYEN:

Swimsuit competition is just for the eyes of the viewers.

It is not right to say that the swimsuit competition is necessary for the judges to judge the contestants' bodies. It is actually just a performance to please the audience.

Physical beauty is a gift from God, beyond human will, so it is not something that needs to be competed for. Only the mind and soul are human, things that people have to train to have, that is what should be competed for.

That's not to mention the feminism issue in the swimsuit competition.

Beauty pageants in Vietnam can decide whether to remove swimsuit competitions or not depending on the specific nature of the contest, but at least they should update the trend of the times.

* LE PHAM NGOC MINH (Hanoi, PI Auction House specialist):

Respect women no matter what they wear

I have absolutely no problem with the bikini competition in beauty pageants. I love watching it in beauty pageants around the world. I think that in a society that respects women, whatever a woman wears, as long as it is appropriate for the context, should be respected.

But beauty contests in Vietnam today have too many problems. Too many "garden" beauty contests and they are even blander than game shows on TV.

These contests do not help to find a woman who represents the beauty and intelligence of Vietnamese women. What remains after many beauty contests are only suspicions of selling or buying prizes or tricks of the organizers.

I think beauty pageants should be organized in a different, more professional way, not just discussing whether or not to have bikini contests. If we can’t improve the quality of beauty pageants and let them be as messy as they are now, we should just stop.

Assoc.Prof.Dr. NGUYEN HOANG ANH (Lecturer at Foreign Trade University):

The struggle for women's rights has initially had results.

Many feminist organizations have spoken out against beauty pageants in general and swimsuit competitions in particular, considering them a form of trafficking in women's bodies.

Forcing contestants to wear excessively high heels due to the belief that these shoes make women look sexier is also opposed by these organizations because it affects the contestants' health and emphasizes the aspect of viewing women as sexual objects.

This long-term struggle has finally had initial results and made beauty pageant organizers in other countries think.

Some people think that bikini is the outfit that allows contestants to show off their physical beauty most clearly, however this is the task of the contest's anthropometric testing department and the judges, not the audience.

Put yourself in the position of the contestant's parents or relatives, how would we feel when witnessing our immature daughter exposing her body in front of millions of strangers like that?

Therefore, I sincerely hope that the organizers of future beauty pageants in Vietnam will adopt the reform spirit of the Miss America pageant by replacing the bikini competition with a one-piece swimsuit and removing high heels over 7cm from the contest.

Let the contestant show off his or her overall beauty and real height instead of borrowing from outside!