ABSTRACT
In May of 1981 a journalist in Cordoba, Andalusia, described the opinions about beauty pageants held by Oro Munoz Gonzalez, a member of a local feminist organization known as the Women's Assembly. He claimed that "To her, beauty contests seem something absurd, ridiculous and insipid .... According to her, the countries of higher culture, for example in Northern Europe, have already eliminated these customs, which are now found only in America."! The accuracy of her claim (or his) is not in question here,2 but it seems appropriate to note that by this one comment she was identified with a pro-European, progressive stance, which in Cordoba continues to be pitted against the reactionary or traditionalist politics of the Francoist right as well as of the Andaluz nationalist parties. At issue here is the rhetoric of political positioning, not the objective world history of beauty pageants. The question of women in Cordoba continues to be politicized in a debate that compares, at varying levels of accuracy, Spain's policies for equality, abortion, and so on, with those of "Northern Europe."
