I normally have friends over to watch Miss America (this year will just be me and my men though); they often wonder how I so accurately predict members of the Top 15 at the start of the pageant. I have two “insider” tips: 1) Follow who wins the preliminaries during pageant week; 2) Read some [...]
This post was happily featured on Babble on April 18, 2012 as the post I am most proud of us a mom! One week ago I gave birth to our precious son, Carston Cook Levey Friedman. We have been affectionately referring to him as Little Man. During labor I spent a good amount of time [...]
Princess means that you’re a loser! A lot of feminists might agree with this sentiment– especially with the recent release of Disney’s newest princess targeted at the preschool set, Sofia the First. But it was a child beauty pageant mom who uttered this line during the continuing fourth season of TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras, which [...]
I recently published a book review of Francesco Duina’s new sociological investigation on competition in the latest issue of International Review of Modern Sociology. You can read the review by CLICKING HERE. While it did appear in an academic journal, I believe the review (and the book itself!) should be accessible to a non-academic audience. [...]
To outsiders it might seem like there are lots of links between the world of child beauty pageants and the world of adult beauty pageants (which do not exclusively include the Miss America, Miss Universe, and Miss World systems, but those are certainly the most prestigious and well-known). But that isn’t quite right. Lots of [...]
This past Saturday evening I had the pleasure of attending the Miss Massachusetts Pageant, held in Worcester, MA. Molly Whalen, Miss Taunton, took the title– the only blonde title holder from New England competing for Miss America 2012. Misses Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island were in attendance, actually sitting in the row in [...]
Many of my blog posts fall into one of the following categories: beauty pageants, child beauty pageants, and competitive children. Today’s post features updates on some of my most popular stories in each of these areas. 1) Botox Mom (aka Kerry Campbell/Sheena Upton)- It’s been reported that Botox Mom (who never actually used Botox it [...]
Please check out my piece in the June 19, 2011 issue of The Boston Globe Magazine! It is an analysis I did of the past 25 years of the Miss Massachusetts America Pageant. No Miss Massachusetts has ever won Miss America– and only one queen from a New England state has ever won, for that [...]
Please note: This appeared on The Huffington Post on March 15, 2011 as “There She Goes: A Trailblazing, Feminist Beauty Queen.” This week women around the world observed the 100th celebration of International Women’s Day. We honored female trailblazers and leaders. One woman not discussed was Jean Bartel, Miss America 1943, who passed away on [...]
Are your fingers ready? Voting starts for American Idol this week (with a new option to vote via Facebook, in addition to calling in or voting by texting) and the Top 24 seems to be full of talent. It also happens to be one of the youngest groups yet. Thanks to John Kubicek’s calculations we [...]
