Betel Nut Beauty Girl, Taiwan

Controversy surrounding betel nut beauties generally centers on two questions:
1. the propriety of their revealing dress in public places and
2. whether their dress marks them as victims of exploitation.
Betel nut beauties often hail from agricultural and working-class sectors of Taiwanese society. This has led some critics to regard their revealing dress as a sign of exploitation. Other observers take a more benign view. If most betel nut beauties come from agricultural and working-class backgrounds, so do their customers and employers. Betel nuts are, after all, an agricultural product. These observers are more inclined to see these betel nut vendors as self-empowering: young women with few resources who better their economic situation by employing a marketing technique that requires confidence. The same approach is evident, they say, wherever trade show and fashion models do their work. Ordinances that target betel nut beauties exclusively, say these observers, smack of hypocrisy and class discrimination.