ABSTRACT
Beauty queens have been described as embodying the nation, bearing their nation’s name on the sash around their body as they stand on the international stage. 1 Beauty queens represent a type of idealised femininity; they are young and unmarried, sexually desirable and yet assumed to be sexually pure and must be seen to act with modesty and decorum (see Chapter 12 ). As such, they are examples of both beauty and behaviour and represent the dominant moral discourse of the nation. This moral discourse requires beauty queens to tread a fi ne line between promoting their sexual desirability through emphasising their physical beauty while being seen as sex ually unavailable. When this seemingly complicated moral discourse is achieved by beauty queens, they are hailed as role models for young women, representing elegant and stylised potential wives or daughters-in-law.
