Selection 2021 | Beauty pageants go beyond modeling swimsuits, they are a platform for action: Miss Universe
Mexican Miss Universe Andrea Meza, originally from Chihuahua, assured exclusively for Forbes Mexico that beauty pageants are a platform for action to change the lives of women and that they go beyond showing models in swimsuit.
“Regarding beauty pageants, I would invite everyone to do a little more research on what they are about. I know that this old concept of what a contest was where women were modeling on stage still persists, a night where they are all in bathing suits and their physique is evaluated. This goes far beyond that: there are women who are prepared, with a university degree, and who want to use this platform for good," Meza said.
She considered that gender roles are still very marked in a country like Mexico, where women are still imposed on what type of professions they should study or there is the belief that women do not have the same intellectual capacity as men .
“Women should have the same role as men: there should be no distinction”, emphasized the Miss Universe.
Currently, Meza is promoting the campaign "Rejecting street harassment is also a healthy distance" together with the Municipal Institute for Women in Ciudad Juárez to make street harassment visible, since she admitted that she herself was harassed when she was leaving a gym and that at that moment she was blinded by fear.
“Since I am part of the Miss Universe platform, I have looked for a way to use the audience that sees me and this position to talk about women's rights and how to end the violence that we experience in the streets. I have worked closely with the Municipal Institute for Women in Ciudad Juárez, where I have been promoting the campaign to reject street harassment is also a healthy distance”, she narrated.
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The model also recognized herself as a powerful woman and recalled that although she never thought she could be Miss Universe, she turned her fear into an impulse not to stop.
“I consider myself a powerful woman because I have power over my life, my decisions and what path I want my life to take. It took time for me to realize that I found this power in myself and that I could be the person that I want to be, ”she recounted.
In addition, she recognized that by becoming Miss Universe she learned about the strength of her words and actions: “our words can build a person or destroy them and I always keep that in mind because I hope that with what I do I can encourage other women."
Meza shared that one of his phrases for life: “Since I was in university I felt very related to the phrase that says 'the mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size' and I identify with it. because when I decided to get out of my comfort zone and face very big challenges, that's when my life mission changed”.
Miss Universe 2020 is in Mexico City to be part of Smile Train, the organization that has helped operate on a million children with cleft lips and palates.
In this sense, Mónica Domínguez, area director for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean of the organization, highlighted that despite the challenges they have faced, Smile Train is led by women and it is precisely these who are leading the programs.
“We are a network of more than 90 countries and we have more than 2,100 professional doctors who are collaborating with us, fortunately it has been growing not only in number in the health area, but they are getting involved in the administrative part and in some kind of coaching", explained Domínguez.
* This note was originally published on October 1, 2021.
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