Yuki Iozumi was wondering what her shoulders would look like in a wedding dress.
“I feel like I look too muscular,” says 20-year-old Iozumi, who is short, of how friends have told her how karate has changed her body. “I don’t think it’s too feminine.”
Traditional femininity is her goal. Although Ms. Iozumi, a sophomore majoring in community studies, is not married, she entered a beauty contest at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo – part of a hugely popular and unknown phenomenon. unfazed at Japanese universities is known as Miss Con.
The pageants, fully known as the Miss Contest, are held at many campuses across Japan, including at prestigious universities such as University of Tokyo and Keio University It is considered a place to train elite political and business leaders.
While beauty pageants still exist in the West, what is different in Japan is that they are sponsored by groups of students at institutions that proclaim high principles of both intellectual achievement and standardization. for professional life. The competitions also perpetuate a culture that often places women in rigid gender roles.
In Japan, the finalists of Miss Con attracted thousands of followers on social networks and received sponsorship from companies. Some go on to model gigs. During the campaign, academia was rarely mentioned. Public service is not a prerequisite for entering most competitions.
Miss pageants are seen as a gathering place for TV broadcasters and “talented” — women who appear on variety shows, comedy and even news talk shows, where they are valued more for looks than skill or knowledge.
Although there are competitions for both women and men, it is the women who attract the most attention.
“’Miss Cons’ is one of our biggest sources of clients,” said Tasuku Ito, talent agency director at the Furutachi Project in Tokyo. “It’s a place where a lot of cute and beautiful women gather. We don’t even have to go looking for them.”
Male contestants, he said, are often not selected; The men who appear on the news and other television programs are “probably far more expert in their field”.
Beauty in Japan is defined more narrowly than in the West. Women with feminine features, round eyes, and slim bodies — those considered “kawaii” or cute — featured prominently in TV series, pop groups, commercials, and even cartoons. Figure.
In college competitions, fans also tend to vote for winners who embody the ideal of female beauty.
The competition at Aoyama Gakuin, with its main campus located in the heart of Tokyo’s luxury fashion district, has a history of nearly half a century and is one of the most famous in Japan.
Gauzy, professional manufacture model video Posting online presents competitors in traditional gender roles. In one, three of the women act in one skits where they discussed marital goals, and another video shown at the contest’s finale late last month showed the women baking cupcakes while the men showed up for a lifting session. dumbbell.
Two years ago, an Aoyama Gakuin video introduces six female finalists and poses the question: “Who would you date?” The barely spoken women showed up while eating ice cream, playing birdie in the park, shopping for clothes, playing video games in the arcade and eating cheesecake with an unknown guest. seen, all while glancing at the camera flirtatiously.
In recent years, some students and faculty at Japanese universities have begun to question the basis of such competitions. Critics criticize them for imposing stereotypical beauty standards and say they don’t fit the values of a university.
“Personally, I think this beauty contest among college students is simply outrageous, because it highlights the looks and marketability of young women in Japanese society, where this kind of culture and That value is already too common,” said Hae-bong Shin, a student. Professor of law at Aoyama Gakuin and head of a newly established gender research center. “The whole college culture is contaminated by that.”
Aoyama Gakuin said in a statement that since last year, Miss Con is no longer part of the university’s official fall festival and that the university has established a gender research center to “replace gender consciousness.” stereotype”.
Heavy beauty standards promoted by contests can lead to unhealthy behavior. in one video posted on YouTubeA former Rikkyo University contestant said she dieted so much to fit her wedding dress that “midnight would cry because she was so hungry”.
The contests have also come under scrutiny after the male organizers of a contest at Keio University was accused of sexually assaulting one of the contestants. At the University of Tokyo, the 2020 winner publicly accused the organizers of sexually harassing contestants, for example by asking in interviews how many partners they’ve had sex with. At Aoyama Gakuin and many other universities, student groups that organize beauty contests are no longer officially sanctioned by the university.
Organizers at the University of Tokyo – or Todai, as the school is called – say they have now assigned female “managers” to each of the women taking part in the competition. “We actually warned the committee members not to” harass the participants, said Ryoma Ogasawara, a student organizer of the contest. “But there’s not much we can do.”
Asa Kamiya, 22, crowned Miss Todai 2020, said she witnessed another contestant in tears after being forced to drink 10 glasses of wine by a mostly male organizer, who selected the finalists.
“I am still a young girl just entering college,” Kamiya said, adding that organizers had also asked about her sex life. “And the thought of having to get all the support from all these men makes me shiver a little.”
After the harassment allegations surfaced, the student organizers made a public statement sorry.
However, Ms. Kamiya said the contest “changed her life” because she later secured modeling work and appearances on television variety shows. “I don’t think competitions should be abolished,” she said.
At some universities, student organizers have sought to perpetuate competitions by shifting the focus to character and social messaging.
At Sophia University in Tokyo, the organizers asked each candidate to choose a social challenge as their personal theme and post a message on social media. The contest organizers also unify male and female competitions and invite participants who have identified any gender.
Last year, when Sophia’s newly redesigned finale was held online, a female contestant hid her face, trying to convey that beauty was no longer the focus of the event. (She didn’t win).
This year’s winner, 19-year-old Mihane Fujiwara, is a social welfare student who highlighted a visit to Cambodia, where she witnessed the waste problem in poor communities, and her charity work. volunteering at a soup kitchen in Los Angeles during the summer.
But last year’s runner-up, 21-year-old Mai Egawa, majoring in African studies, says that whenever she posts on social media About her interest in Rwanda, she received comments telling her “you are so cute” or “you are so beautiful”.
“If the people who watch the contest don’t change,” she said, “it is very difficult to change the perception of the contest.”
On a weekend in late October, the two-day finale of the “Miss Mister Aoyama Contest” was held in a darkened auditorium on the ninth floor of a tower in Tokyo’s Shibuya district.
Ms. Iozumi and five other female finalists paraded the stage in lace party dresses lent by a sponsor, and videos showcasing the company’s other supporters were shown on the screen. great. Each contestant had a short performance — decorating a cake, singing a self-composed hip-hop song and, in Iozumi’s case, performing a karate kata with a dance partner.
For the duration of the four-month campaign, fans can vote online daily. At the finale, they voted manually to select the finalists. Masayuki Yamanaka, 47, a spectator in the serial competition, wears a felt hat and balances a row of small stuffed animals in his lap. When scrutinizing candidate profiles on a flashy show, he struggled to make his final choice. “They are all so cute,” he said.
On day two, the three remaining female finalists appeared in wedding dresses with flared skirts and glittery tiaras, each accompanied by a male contestant on the red carpet runway. Miss Iozumi hid her shoulders under the bodice with a high lace collar and long sleeves.
When the contestants returned to the light-filled stage, they evoked a mass wedding of stone-faced couples.
When Miss Iozumi was announced as Miss Aoyama, she looked stunned.
Sitting in the back of the auditorium with a school friend from university in Chiba, a prefecture bordering Tokyo, 21-year-old Nodoka Ogawa said she would never consider participating in the Miss Universe pageant.
“I think they have to be very brave, because there will be a lot of people looking at them,” she said. “And you have to be physically very nice.”
