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A Pregnant Bikini Pageant Contestant: Is it Empowering or Are They Being Exploited?
A Pregnant Pageant Contestant
I really am not sure how to feel about a pregnant lady bikini contest. Should we be mortified by the idea of pregnant ladies being exploited for their bodies or should we feel a sense of empowerment for owning their transformation? Or perhaps it should be a feeling that includes a mixture of both? Personally, I really do have a sense of being conflicted about the whole thing.
So, here’s the deal in Houston, Texas, at a bar and grill called Big Woodrow’s, they hold an annual Pre-Labor Day Pregnant Bikini Contest. Think oodles of pregnant ladies stripping down to skimpy bikinis in the middle of a bar and strutting their stuff into front of a crowd of hooters and hollerers… These baby-packing hot mamas, by their own free will, are being judged on their baby bumps.
Yes, a pregnant woman’s body is a beautiful thing, curves galore. But is being objectified for your pregnant body by strangers really something you’d want to do using the theory “if you’ve got it, flaunt it”? And the thoughts of all those guys with a pregnancy fetish crowding the bar, just seems creepy. One thing’s for sure, it’ll be a great story to tell the kids some day.
What do you think about the pregnant bikini pageant? Would you ever do that?
Image: Big Woodrow’s
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5 Comments
[...] Are pregnant bikini pageants empowering or exploitative? – Babble.com [...]
Around the Web… | commented on Sep 09 11 at 1:22 pmBunnytwenty commented on Sep 08 11 at 5:02 pmI don’t think it’s empowering or exploitative. I think it’s just stupid. And it’s sad that when our bodies are doing something far more powerful than just looking sexy, we’re still supposed to be focusing on what we look like. Yuck.
marlene commented on Sep 08 11 at 8:48 pmPre-labor day bikini contest……Advertising intern who thought of this one A+++
Free, national advertising coverage…. Priceless
I think it also makes the fab, fit preggo ladies who would have entered a bikini contest pre gestation, feel a little bit sexy and not so frumpy.
In this “I feel so FAT” stage in their lives who couldent use a little extra whoopin and hollorin about how good you look.
jenny tries too hard commented on Sep 09 11 at 8:57 amThe headline makes me gag. It implies that something is being done *to* the women, that they are being exploited or empowered by some nebulous other, as if they are just passive objects or children rather than adults who choose one action or another. Why are bikini contests (pregnant and not), exotic dancing, Hooters, etc. so often framed this way, talking about the women who participate as though they were children, even when talked about from a feminist standpoint?
Jayne commented on May 19 12 at 6:37 pmI think that pregnant woman bikini contests are exploitive. This is not the time to be strutting around in a bikini. What happens if a woman goes into labor while being in the contest? It can happen. I think it is terrible.
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