Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/30780
global I REPORTS Embracing Their Roundness O Ghana’s new pageant aims to redefine African beauty N A SUNDAY NIGHT IN A crowded TV studio in Accra, the audience waits for “Ghana’s most beautiful women” to appear. Sponsors and tribal elders in Kente cloth sit up front; audience members fan themselves with signs reading “vote for Ama” or “vote for Chaana.” Music booms and the six finalists appear onstage in tradition- al dress, singing. They dance bare- foot, stomachs joggling, thigh flesh wobbling. In the West, African beauty has been defined by supermodels such as Iman, and while they’re notable in the sea of white faces in magazines and on runways in Paris and London, such models’ tall, size-four frames fit dominant Western beauty standards. But this TV pageant, Ghana’s Most Beautiful, has defied that trend, defin- ing beauty through culture and a Ghanaian concept of full-bodied womanhood. Producer Elizabeth Coleman says it’s a response to the erosion of local traditions due to globalization and modernization. “Most beauty pageants send the message that you have to be slim…ba- sically a cute American or British lady,” says Coleman. “We Ghanaians have certain features and characteristics.” The contestants, from Ghana’s 10 regions, must be able to speak their regional language, dance their tradi- tional dance and show extensive knowledge of their cultural practices. Finalists stay in a house together. Not unlike American Idol, they’re elimi- nated through audience votes. The winner is awarded a car. The show has grown to dominate its 8 p.m. prime-time slot, and it provides seri- ous competition to pageants like Miss Ghana, whose winner proceeds to the Miss World pageant. Ghana’s Most Beautiful still defines the ideal Ghanaian woman in tradi- tional terms, however: Coleman stresses she should be able to dance, cook and care for children. Neverthe- less, contestants have found ways to use the show to criticize cultural practices they find detrimental to women. During an episode on rites of pas- sage, Asibi Awemih, a 24-year-old de- velopment studies graduate, drew attention to the treatment of widows in areas of Ghana’s Upper East Region, where women may be blamed for their husbands’ deaths. In her applause- garnering performance, Awemih came onstage in a skin-colored cap (to give the appearance of a shaved head), wearing a tube top, a loincloth and gashes drawn onto her shoulders and thighs. Two men whipped her, forc- ing her to drink from a bowl suppos- edly containing water used to wash her husband’s corpse. Weeping, Awemih explained how widows are beaten by their in-laws, locked up with their husbands’ bodies, then cast out to beg. “I got into the competition,” says Awemih, “to [show] some of the bad traditions…we should try and sift out.” Other contestants have raised such issues as domestic violence and have spotlighted the struggles of Kayayo girls, who migrate from villages to find themselves working as market porters. For them, as for Awemih, beauty, brains, character and culture are inseparable. “We [Ghanaians] embrace the roundness…we love the way we are made,” says Awemih, “We see beauty to be in the head—if you haven’t got brains, you’re not pretty.” —CLAIR MACDOUGALL 3Contestants in Ghana’s Most Beautiful don’t conform to Western norms of beauty. www.feminist.org TV3