Teen queens

Here in Peru, girls grow up dreaming of becoming reinas (queens). No, Peru is not a monarchy, but it nevertheless has a strong tradition of reinas: teen beauty pageant winners. Americans are no stranger to beauty pageants, especially after "Little Miss Sunshine," but there's a key difference in our two countries' interpretations of these competitions. In the U.S., the beauty pageant world represents a kind of sub-culture - something that certain people participate in, and that the rest of the population pretty much ignores. In contrast, Peruvian beauty pageants are sponsored annually by every municipality and every high school, and pretty much the whole town attends each event - the tradition holds a strong place in mainstream Peruvian culture. 

The basic idea is the same: girls are chosen to represent their grade level or neighborhood, and they compete by modeling various outfits down the catwalk and answering generic questions.  I've never been to a pageant in the States, and wasn't really interested in attending one here - the whole premise seems to me at best silly and at worst highly sexist. But when the local all-girls school where my sitemates and I have all taught invited us, we figured it was time to see for ourselves what these reinas were all about. The result was 100% as silly as I had expected, and 300% more sexist - I felt extremely uncomfortable the entire time, and left early. Girls as young as 12 wore clothes and make-up that would be provocative on women twice their age, the questions celebrated rote memorization rather than the girls' individuality, and each contestant brought on hundreds of whistles and catcalls from the largely male audience who'd come to see the show. 

From where I sit, the reinas competitions simultaneously reinforce and are fed by Peru's overwhelming machista culture in an ugly cycle - not something I'll be attending ever again. The only redeeming aspect was seeing all the different classes cheering for their representatives - these competitions are an important school-spirit event for the girls, and they went all out to support their friends with confetti, balloons, and t-shirts. That, at least, brought a smile to my face.