OPINION — Arizona voters have settled the question of fairness in girls’ sports. Proposition 318 has passed. So why stop at the gym?
Consider the school pageant. Somewhere in Pinal County, a teenager is about to walk onstage in a borrowed gown, armed with natural gifts and a baton routine. Beside her stands a competitor who has been, to use the technical term, “improved.” The playing field isn’t level. It’s been contoured.
I therefore propose the Protect Natural Pageants Act, disqualifying any contestant who has undergone elective cosmetic surgery: liposuction, tummy tucks, breast augmentation or reduction, rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, brow lifts, chin surgery, buccal fat removal and surgical lip augmentation.
Pageants celebrate natural attributes, and “natural” means whatever the contestant was issued at birth. No girl should have to compete against a nose that has been through committee.
There is also economic fairness. Surgery is expensive, and the crown shouldn’t go to the family with the better plastic surgeon rather than the better hairspray budget. And what message do we send impressionable girls if winning requires a scalpel? Schools should teach self-acceptance, not run a pipeline to the surgical suite.
Enforcement, naturally, can follow Prop. 318’s model: let aggrieved runners-up sue. A Pageant Integrity Panel, equipped with clipboards and perhaps measuring tape, could investigate suspicious noses, chins and waistlines. Surely no one objects to a little intrusive scrutiny of teenage girls’ bodies in the name of fairness.
If a level playing field is worth legislating in the gym, it’s worth legislating on the runway. After all, a level playing field should be a level playing field.
Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to azopinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here