An aspiring beauty pageant contestant has filed a discrimination complaint against the world’s top beauty competitions for disqualifying mothers from participating.
Danielle Hazel longs to compete in beauty pageants—but she was quite upset to find out that she was ineligible because she is a mother. On Monday September 16, the New York woman announced her official challenge to the rule to a group gathered in Central Park, at the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument.
She explained that her dream was crushed when she learned that she was ineligible to compete in Miss America and Miss World pageants because she had a six-year-old son, Zion, when she was 19. Hazel is now 25. The aspiring beauty contestant explained that she told her son about the rules and his “immediate gut reaction” was to say that they “are stupid.”
She added that his “sense of fairness” even at such a young age “tells him” that the rule is “unjust” and “makes no sense.” The Commission on Human Rights received a complaint from Hazel’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, on September 16.
The filing argues that the rules should be rescinded since they discriminate against mothers, eliminating them from “important business and cultural opportunity” like beauty pageants only because they have children.
As Allred put it, the “exclusion is degrading” to Hazel because it reinforces a “stereotype” that women are incapable of being both mothers and “talented and philanthropic” as well as presenting themselves as “beautiful,” “poised,” and “passionate.”
The attorney also noted that she has previously represented a similar regulation that kept a California mom from competing in a state pageant that is linked to the Miss USA and Miss Universe competitions. In that challenge—submitted to the California Civil Rights Department—Andrea Quiroga successfully overturned a 70-year-old rule that eliminated mothers from competing in the national and international organizations.
Allred added that it is “not a crime” to be pregnant or a parent, emphasizing that such a status should never “exclude” people from “employment or business opportunities.” She also said that it should not “carry a stigma” that leads people to feel “embarrassed” or “degraded” simply because they are parents.
