As Miss Venezuela was crowned the competition's 61st winner last night,
feminists chanted outside the exhibition hall, carrying placards with
slogans such as "objectification won't achieve world peace".
Sabrina Qureshi, the founder of Million Women Rise, said that, far from
harmless fun, beauty pageants were a sign of a society that trivialises
women in a way that leads to violence such as the murder of Joanna Yeates. "We
have read that the murderer of Joanna Yeates was using pornography which
contained images very similar to how he murdered Joanna," said Ms
Qureshi.
"To stop such heinous crimes against women and girls, we need to stop
trivialising what may appear to be harmless practices and start joining up
the dots of women's treatment, representation and discrimination."
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