They don't allow women to drive; they barely allow them to breathe without permission. So, it should come as no surprise that the only "pageants" held in Saudi Arabia involve women who are basically invisible, covered until to the eyeballs in black fabric (in 120-degree temperature land, to boot.) Of course, these pageants are not about beauty... unless you consider rigid conservative "morals" beautiful.
Meet Miss Beautiful Morals! She's hot as hell... under all that heavy material.
Actually, this is the judge of the Miss Beautiful Morals pageant... but no matter.
By the way, the candidates will not be judged on their looks-- they'll be ranked based on their devotion to their parents. So, if my parents wanted to sell me out to an 80-year-old man or demanded I marry my first cousin, who is a serial murderer who spits on children in the street, I would be disqualified? That's what IndyStar tells us:
"The idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants' commitment to Islamic morals... It's an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman's body and looks," said pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak.
"The winner won't necessarily be pretty," she added. "We care about the beauty of the soul and the morals."
So after the pageant opens Saturday, the nearly 200 contestants will spend the next 10 weeks attending classes and being quizzed on themes including "Discovering your inner strength," "The making of leaders" and "Mom, paradise is at your feet" - a saying attributed to Islam's Prophet Muhammad to underline that respect for parents is among the faith's most important tenets.
Pageant hopefuls will also spend a day at a country house with their mothers, where they will be observed by female judges and graded on how they interact with their mothers, al-Mubarak said. Since the pageant is not televised and no men are involved, contestants can take off the veils and black figure-hiding abayas they always wear in public.
So, they'll be judged on how they look in private, although they can't look that way in public? Something seems a bit off about that, but whatever-- the whole thing is a disaster as is, due to the total mockery of human decency that is Saudi Arabia. [Update: If you are upset that I am attacking a country for its indecency, then you need to read this.]
And one more thing: until Miss Beautiful Morals took the country by storm in 2008, "the only pageants were for goats, sheep, camels and other animals, aimed at encouraging livestock breeding." Meanwhile, did you hear that Afghanistan isolated its lone pig (yes, there's only one in the entire country, we swear) for fear everyone would get swine flu.
Ah, God bless Islam. [Which is a joke.]
More on Saudi Arabia here and Afghanistan here.
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