Beauty pageants have been taking place since the dawn of time and a satirical view of them has been a long time coming. What’s interesting at the moment however is that while most women in the world with any self respect would have to be held at gun-point before they would even consider entering a beauty contest, it seems wannabe beauty queens in Chechnya are potentially risking their own lives just to be crowned the prettiest thing.

While millions of intelligent and beautiful women are running a million miles away from the idea of a beauty pageant, only this week in Chechnya - a strict muslim country - young girls dared to defy their fathers wishes by entering the country’s first beauty contest.

To the delight of Chechen parents there was no swimsuit round, the girls just competed on their looks, with their clothes on. The Prime Minister of the country however, is supportive of the contest and his comments show that any future contests in the country are well on the way to becoming the ridiculous ordeal they already are in the rest of the world.

“The contest shows what a Chechen girl should be like. And about skirts, if she’s got good legs then a bit shorter. But if she has bad legs best to have a long skirt,” says Chechen Prime Minister, Ramzen Kadyrov. Even if the girls in Chechnya believe they were simply taking a step forward in the name of ‘girl-power’, the whole idea of a beauty pageant - in any form or shape - still just screams out ‘degrading’ and ‘fake’. Of course you will hear the odd promotional Disney story, where a beauty pageant contestant is literally pulled out of the gutter and then rocketed to unknown success after winning. But the success, however, mostly just takes the form of cutting ribbons and holding score boards in a bikini at boxing matches. But these ‘lucky’ girls are also the rare exception.

America in particular loves parading beauty. There is nothing more American than beauty pageants - well, muffins and donuts I guess have an American ring to them, but beauty pageants typify the country better. For some reason, the US thrives on the idea that a tiny waist, huge breasts and flawless skin is all you need in life, so it therefore becomes the best case study as to why beauty contests are so shallow, pointless and fake.

Everything about a beauty contest is quite scary. It makes you wonder what sort of women or girls enter these things? What drives them? What leads them to believe that a little sparkly crown is the most coveted sign of success. Especially considering the life of a beauty queen is often not a pleasant one. They tend to wear a shoe size smaller than their feet, they normally tape their breasts up to look perky and they tape their butt to give it a firm look. The whole environment encourages cosmetic surgery. The behind the scenes bitchiness and nail-clawing sounds frightening.

And as for the humiliating little routines they have to perform on stage, it just personifies how brain-dead and phoney the entire contest is. At least in Mr World - which is equally as pathetic – they perform physically and mentally challenging tasks, like martial arts training, jungle survival exercises and extreme sports, but in the women’s version, it’s all just about painting nails.

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