We are students, alumni, full-time and part-time faculty members and employees, neighbors, and friends of International Christian University. As part of the ICU community, we have a special interest in what ICU means to us and others. We have recently learned that a student organization is planning to hold a beauty pageant at the University's annual school festival in late October, which has caused us great concern.
The student organization hosting the beauty pageant in its initial announcement argued that the fact that there had been no beauty pageant at ICU was one of "the various walls built by old generations," and that hosting a beauty pageant at ICU this year would "blow a new wind" into the ICU campus. But we disagree with those statements.
As can be seen in the dialogue between the ICU Festival Committee and the Center for Gender Studies which took place in 2008, ICU's tradition of NOT having beauty pageants on campus is one that has been built upon a thread of continuous conversation among the university community. Besides, when other universities and colleges hold beauty pageants regularly, having no beauty pageants at ICU has been both a "tradition" and a "new wind." We would argue that it is a tradition that condemns unethical practices and discrimination, and brings about changes, one that respects human diversity and dignity.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which all incoming ICU students are required to sign upon matriculation, states:
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All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
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Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
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Here, "sex" is explicitly included as one of the factors that must not become the basis for discrimination. Moreover, if we consider this along with the Preamble, which states that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world," we believe it is reasonable to assume that "other status" here includes age and physical appearance, given the contemporary context.
This Declaration, in addition, is a statement that celebrates human diversity.
When beauty pageants began to emerge, our societies were filled with sexist attitudes toward women whose values were judged according to their physical appearances and behavior. These attitudes still continue to exist within the same-old context. Sexism is not past history, since every day we see in advertisements, for instance, degrading images of women that objectify them sexually. The proposed beauty pageant for the ICU Festival is called "misukon," short for miss contest, a popular synonym for beauty pageants in Japan. The term, miss, indicates that although the student organization has not made public announcements as to whether men can enter, the event will probably follow the normative givens of beauty pageants elsewhere, in which (unmarried) women are evaluated based on what society thinks is the definition of beauty. Moreover, scholars from various disciplines, especially from fields of feminist studies and queer studies, as well as activists in social movements have revealed that beauty pageants implicitly condemn human diversity. Diversity here not only includes differences among women or differences between women and men, but also differences of and among sexual minorities, disabled people, and ethnic minorities.
Beauty pageants, or misukon, are rituals in which such discriminatory practices are carried out, performed, and reinforced in an open, public environment, with the result that the injustices we see every day are validated and reproduced.
ICU as an institution endorses the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and one of its missions is "to nurture leaders who have matured as individuals, with the ability to solve world problems" (A Message from the President, ICU). If an ICU student argues that the university should have a beauty pageant just because other universities and colleges do, that not only contradicts what the university believes to be "leadership," but also overlooks the university's tradition of respecting differences and diversity among the ICU community. We are worried that this may lead to serious human rights violation issues on campus.
The ICU Basic Policy for the Prevention of Human Rights Violations states:
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As a university that values the International Declaration on Human Rights, ICU takes as its responsibility the securing of a safe campus for its community members to live and work, by providing an educational, research and working environment free from human rights violations. For this reason, no discrimination based on such things as sex, race, religion, age, sexual orientation or disability, and no sort of harassment or abuse of status or position will be permitted in any form for any reason. All members of the campus community are expected to fully understand the internationality and the Christian spirit that ICU stands for and work together to create a pleasant campus.
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Notice that ALL members of the campus community are expected to work together to create a pleasant campus environment, by which the policy means "a safe campus" without any kind of discrimination or harassment.
Some may argue that by holding a slightly modified version of a beauty pageant, the student organization is aiming at creating a new model for a more benign form of sexual objectification. But a more benign form of discrimination, a more benign way to harass women, can never be an indication of the "leadership" that the university says it wants to foster in its students. Rather, any attempt in this direction will invariably violate the ICU Basic Policy for the Prevention of Human Rights Violations.
Indeed, a campus environment with more benign forms of discrimination and harassment is one that is unquestionably better than ones characterized by downright discrimination and harassment. We will not, however, tolerate the idea that it is enough to ensure human rights of all members of the ICU community WHILE THEY ARE IN RESIDENCE. ICU missions include respect for "internationality," which is a very important concept for creating a world where diversity is respected and no one is discriminated against.
Therefore, as citizens and members of the ICU community, we make the following statements regarding the planned beauty pageant.
- We stand against beauty pageants because they have a history of reinforcing a unitary concept of "women's beauty," which is highly racialized, somatically normative, and classed, as well as a history of functioning as a tool for sexual objectification of women.
- Therefore, we stand against all kinds of sexist social phenomena, be it in the advertisement industry or a beauty pageant, even outside of ICU.
- Because of our belief in basic human rights, human diversity, and our capacity to respect them, as a matter of course, we oppose beauty pageants on the ICU campus.
- Because we recognize that ICU is not an ivory tower, completely separate from the outside world, but rather deeply connected to the societal norms and situated within the social/cultural context of society as a whole, our opposition to beauty pageants at ICU is not aimed at protecting the ICU campus as a kind of privileged, discrimination-free space.
We Stand Against Beauty Pageants at ICU.
June 8, 2011
Authors (as of June 9, 2011 - last name in alphabetical order)
Kazuyoshi Kawasaka (Alum: ID06)
Kyeto Kikuchi (Student: ID14)
Akira Kohbara (Alum: ID08)
Harumi Koseki (Student: ID10)
Ayako Masubuchi (Alum: ID09)
Masaki Matsumoto (Alum: ID09 / former part-time employee)
Yuki Nagao (Alum: ID08 / former part-time employee)
Miyuki Owaki (Student: ID14)
Alisa Saito (Student: ID13)
Sumposion, individual members of (an LGBIT student organization at ICU)
Yujiro Tsuneno (Niito-no-ashita)
Mao Ueda (Student: ID13)
Tomomi Yamaguchi (Alum: ID90)
Masashi Yoshida (Student: ID15)
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