The municipality of Icod of the Wines joins the trend of many towns in Spain, like Candelaria in Tenerifeand Santa Cruz de La Palma in the islands, or Betanzos in La Coruña and Quesada in Jaén, among others, from leave behind holding beauty pageants on the occasion of the municipal festivals.
In this way, in the month of September of this year, the election of the queen of the September Festivities in honor of the Christ of Calvary in its adult and children’s modality it will be replaced by other inclusive celebrations that highlight local talent, the dissemination of inclusive and non-sexist values and bet on heritage and culture.
“Santa Cruz de La Palma, in 2019, decided remove from your program the Bajada de la Virgen de las Nieves of 2020 women’s beauty pageants, and the Candelaria City Council did the same in 2022, putting as its main argument that these pageants perpetuate hypersexualization, objectification and patriarchal stereotypes in society”, indicated the mayor of Icod de los Wines, Javier Sierra.
“In these competitions, the female appearance by virtue of specific models, which we consider not in keeping with current times and which discriminate against all those women who do not share them, and of course segregate for reasons of sex”, declared the mayor, “and this type of festivals induce to value only aspects related to their physical without paying attention to other cultural virtues”. In the case of the election to child queen “other factors are added, such as the exhibition before the public of the girls, there is no opportunity or any quality other than aesthetics is promoted, and thus the belief is perpetuated that by being prettier you must be more successful, which promotes inequality based on vain criteria from childhood”.
“This measure already overcomes an issue anchored in the past, which does not contribute to the social development of the community, but on the contrary indicates and accentuates the differences between people based on their physical appearance or aesthetics, so we believe that it is a good time to leave this type of festival behind and move towards a more equitable and respectful society with differences”, pointed out the mayor.
However, Javier Sierra pointed out that this does not mean that other types of contests such as the elections of “romera or magician of the parties of San Marcos are stopped, because they do attend to ethnographic and patrimonial values related to traditional clothing”, but also, he said “we intend to include the male presence in these elections.”
The laws themselves, both regional and state, indicate that there should be no separation for reasons of sex, which is one more argument to justify overcoming the celebration of this type of act. Instead, the City Council will promote “other types of cultural events that complement the patron saint festivals in which integration, culture, heritage and equality are manifest.”
