Using Beauty Pageants to Trace the Arc of Feminism - Professor Levey Friedman on New Book LIVE
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
Author and Brown University Professor Hilary Levey Friedman appeared on GoLocal LIVE to discuss her latest book, “Here She Is: The Complicated Reign of the Beauty Pageant in America.”
“I use beauty pageants to trace the arc of feminism in the United States,” said Levey Friedman, who is currently the President of RI NOW. “I started in 1848 with Seneca Falls and talk about PT Barnum, who’s actually the one who really started both women’s and baby contests — and I go up to the present.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“So this is really using beauty pageants as a lens to see what’s changed for women in higher education, in employment, what’s changed in our culture — if you like RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Bachelor and American Idol, this is the book for you,” she said.
Pageants Past -- and During Pandemics
Levey Friedman discussed pageants in the time of pandemics — and what prompted her to write the book.
“The first thing I want to say — and people are probably wondering — no, I have never competed in a beauty pageant, however my mother was actually Miss America 1970, so you could say that pageantry is literally in my blood,” said Levey Friedman.
“Growing up, it was like my mom was the beauty and I was the brains. To me those things were separate and I would say the past few decades of my life have been figuring out how those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive for anybody,” she said.
Levey Friedman is a sociologist and expert on beauty pageants, childhood and parenting, competitive afterschool activities, and popular culture who teaches courses in the Department of Education at Brown University.
She holds degrees from Harvard University, Princeton University, and the University of Cambridge.
