Child Beauty Pageant, United States

Sexualization
Parents can also contribute to the sexualization their daughters in very direct and concrete ways—for example, by entering their 5-year-old daughter in a beauty pageant in which she and the other contestants engage in behaviors and practices that are socially associated with sexiness: wearing heavy makeup to emphasize full lips, long eyelashes, and flushed cheeks, high heels to emulate adult women, and revealing “evening gowns.” However, there is little evidence that child beauty pageants cause any particular or lasting damage to participants, sexually or otherwise. However, the only claim that disputes this is that JonBenet Ramsey, a young child whose murder garnered much attention and she was terribly exploited by newspaper and television companies who only advertised her in her usually sexual pageant wear. It is most likely whoever took the young child's life saw her at pageants in revealing clothing and knew the Ramsey household well to navigate in darkness to her room, take her to the basement or wine cellar, and murder her.