‘Anybody that would try to break up an affair as wonderful as this, with these kinds of proceedings with these wonderful people and wonderful girls from the entire world have gotta be on some kind of dope’.[1]
This was the retort of Miss World host Bob Hope following the protest of feminist activists at the 1970 contest at the Royal Albert Hall, London. On the signal of a football rattle, protestors disrupted the live-televised show with chanting, and throwing flour bombs and leaflets across the audience and onto the stage.
The protest was organised by the Women’s Liberation Movement. A handwritten note from the archive of Sheila Rowbotham reveals logistical details of the protest, including the meeting time and place, and advice in the case of arrest. The note also reveals that one of the co-ordinating stewards of the events was John Chesterman, referred to as ‘John Chestersomething from the G. L. F’, who was a gay-rights activist closely involved in the Gay Liberation Front in Britain.[2] In an interview with the BBC, protestor and feminist historian Sally Alexander stated that the football rattle signal had come earlier than expected; the protester with the rattle had become enraged at the sexist jokes of Bob Hope, which included:
‘It’s quite a cattle market, I’ve been back there [backstage] checking calves.’
‘I don’t want you to think I’m a dirty old man, because I never give women a second thought… my first thought covers everything.’[3]
Since its inception, the Miss World beauty pageant has attracted controversy. It originally began in 1951 as a bikini contest at the Festival of Britain, founded by Eric Morley, publicity manager for Mecca dance halls (now better known as bingo halls). Married women were banned from entering, according to Morley, ‘because we don’t think they should be asked to spend long periods of time away from their husbands’.[4] Unmarried mothers were later banned after winner Helen Morgan was forced to resign after public outrage that she had a child.[5]
A major objection to Miss World was that it judged women primarily on their appearance. The slogan of the WLM’s campaign against Miss World was ‘We are not beautiful, we are not ugly, we are angry’. As a leaflet within the Chesterman collection states,
‘Women have been in the Miss World contest all their lives. We have been judging ourselves as the judges judge us, trying to please men, dividing other women up into safe friends and attractive rivals; graded, degraded, humiliated . . . . . . . . . . . we’ve seen through it.’[6]
Indeed, the exploitation of women in the Miss World pageant was representative of a wider trend in which the female body was sexualised and used to sell consumer products.
‘Mecca are superpimps selling women’s bodies- but they’re only smalltime pimps in our everyday prostitution. Our waists are used to sell corsets, our legs to sell stockings, our underarms to sell deodorants and our whole and naked bodies to see cars- our sexuality is taken away from us and used to make money for someone else’. [7]
Morley was a shrewd businessman and aimed to make money out of the Miss World Trademark. For instance, within the object collections of the Women’s Library at the LSE is the Miss World Game, a board game aimed at young girls. Players have the choice of 4 figures as their contestant; each is a childlike figure dressed in a swimsuit, 3 of which are blond and white. Players earn money by travelling around the world, landing on squares that award cash for modelling, and TV and nightclub appearances. To win the game, the player must reach the centre of the stage first, whilst avoiding losing points for critical mistakes such as smiling poorly, losing a false eyelash or appearing overconfident. The game conveys the message that in order to be a winner, young women must be confident but not too confident, smiling the right kinds of smile, and maintaining a perfect appearance down to the last eyelash.
Protesters sought to highlight the damaging effects of the Miss World mentality. As one leaflet argued, the price of the Miss World contest was ‘the economic, social and psychological devaluation of women’[8] They objected to the diminishment of the winner as Miss World as simply an image used to profit by big businesses: ‘Whoever becomes Miss World is more than just a trade mark. She is a woman. She is a person. She has a mind.’[9]
The Miss World contest is still held annually, and is the longest running international beauty contest. It is no longer broadcast on UK television. It still continues to attract controversy; in 2002 more than 100 people were killed and 500 injured at riots prompted by religious objections to the Miss World contest hosted by Nigeria.[10]
By Katie Carpenter.
Katie is a Citizens Project intern and PhD researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London.
[1] Bob Hope, 20 November 1970, ‘Miss World Bob Hope blooper 1970’, tvinsider1, YouTube, posted: 4 May 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=reCX3_OAkv8
[2] Miss World Demonstration. Handwritten Note. LSE, WL, 7SHR Box 8.
[3] Sally Alexander interview, ‘Why did this woman storm Miss World pageant? Witness- BBC News’, BBC News, Youtube, posted: 16 March 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO9rPZ7Y_Vw; Hope, ‘Bob Hope Blooper’.
[4] Eric Morley, cited in ‘Now Mecca will ban unmarried mothers’, Daily Mail, 25 November 1974, p. 3.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Anti-Miss World Poster: ‘We Are Angry’, 1971, LSE, WL, HCA/CHESTERMAN/21.
[7] Ibid.
[8] What Price Miss World? Leaflet. [c. 1970], LSE, WL, 7SHR, box 8.
[9] What Price Miss World?
[10] D’arcy Doran, ‘1oo Killed as Nigeria Riots against Miss World’, The Times, 23 November 2002, p. 21.
