NEWS recently broke that the Miss Universe Organisation will soon be allowing married women, women with children and pregnant women to enter the competition. While co-national director of the Miss Universe Jamaica franchise, Mark McDermoth, has stated that Jamaica will abide by whatever rules the parent organisation stipulates, there have been mixed reactions from members of the public, particularly men.

Below they share their views with All Woman.

Steve:

I believe that this is best thing that could happen to the Miss Universe pageant and I hope the other pageants follow suit soon. Women, irrespective of colour, class, race or creed, are beautiful. Personally I didn’t even know that mothers and married women couldn’t enter. Were they saying that married women and mothers aren’t attractive? What’s more beautiful than a pregnant woman at various stages of her pregnancy? If she’s able to go through the rounds, then why not? Long time dem fi free up every woman. These unrealistic beauty standards need to be abolished. The pageant has for years focused on an unrealistic image of women.

Brian:

Good supmn that, super inclusive and modern. Good for all.

Theo:

Well, not following but that’s sounds like a load of crap. If we allow everyone and their whimsical ideas to be, then we won’t have a society of any rules or substance. That is a rigorous and tough competition. Good luck with them bellies and morning sickness and moodiness.

Ryan:

Mothers yes, married women yes, pregnant women nah

Sean:

I can’t see the correlation between a female’s marital status, whether she has kids or not and her ability to represent herself and her community in a beauty pageant. The fact that these are criteria for exclusion, I find to be distasteful, ludicrous, derogatory and outright offensive.

Milton:

Good move. The previous approach excluded too many women who would have liked to participate in the competition.

Phillip:

I support it. With any other profession, a woman can have her child and go back following maternity leave. Say a woman wants to be Miss Jamaica Universe, wins the competition and represents her country for that tenure, she would have to push back her aspirations of being a mother just for that dream, whereas doctors, lawyers and other professions don’t have to.

Aaron:

I don’t mind it. This signals a change, because over the years we are accustomed to a woman not pregnant, a woman supposedly ‘chaste’. It puts a new spin on things and will open our mindset and help us to appreciate women in a different way, whether married or single mothers. It will give a different view of the Miss Universe.