Well, on one of Ms. Traister's point we can all agree: "The video is excruciating in its ubiquity."

"On the other hand ... Upton may be just a kid, but she is clearly a terribly ignorant one."

What the hell is up with this? Calling her ignorant for messing up one question - a question based on completely false statistics to begin with? Honestly? That is simply bullshit.

Let me ask you this – if a male were asked the same question and responded the same way, would he be condemned as ignorant? Would this clip have made the rounds of YouTube? Would his answer have ended up a T-Shirt on BustedTees? Would people on MySpace be making parodies of him wearing a sash that reads “Dumb Bitch�?

No. Of course not.

I was hoping we would read some critical analysis of the way that the attack on Upton (at least Traister used her name) is a violent attack against all femininity, but I guess that's just too much to ask for.

Bumbling questions aside, I always felt that these 'questions' were incredibly shallow and just an attempt by the show to make it seem like they care about something more than looks.

That isn't saying some of these girls aren't very smart, but for every one that is very smart there is one that probably shouldn't have graduated from high school. And from how well Upton placed even if she didn't win, you know they don't give any real care to the Q&A section anyway.

I think they should add an academic decathlon to the show that way they could show some real intelligence versus some generic and shallow 'i care' spiel.

“if a male were asked the same question and responded the same way, would he be condemned as ignorant?�

Um, yeah, a male, female or anything in between would be condemned as ignorant for giving that answer.

Let me ask you this – if a male were asked the same question and responded the same way, would he be condemned as ignorant? Would this clip have made the rounds of YouTube? Would his answer have ended up a T-Shirt on BustedTees? Would people on MySpace be making parodies of him wearing a sash that reads “Dumb Bitch�?

No. We'd elect him president. Twice.

stinsonnick, I would think a man was pretty ignorant if he'd babbled that sort of incoherency, yes. But, as SarahMC points out, I've been in the minority on that sort of thing before.

Hey, if we can make fun of Bush when stupid stuff comes out of his mouth, we can make fun of Miss Teen South Carolina when stupid stuff comes out of her mouth.

I’m sorry, my original comment should have read as follows:

“Let me ask you this – if a male were asked the same question and responded the same way, would he be condemned as ignorant? Would this clip have made the rounds of YouTube? Would his answer have ended up a T-Shirt on BustedTees? Would people on MySpace be making parodies of him wearing a sash that reads “Dumb Bitch�?

And if so, would the power dynamic be the same? Would it be used to promote centuries-old sexist stereotypes in the same way? Would his mistake be used as yet another indictment of all masculine men or just his own individual intelligence?

No. Of course not.�

I think that’s an important addition to my comment, and helps explain why I feel that this is a feminist issue.

I bet she could have contested the results, given that hers was probably the only bogus question, but then she'd have to fight her newfound Stupid Blonde stereotype head on; not an enticing prospect.

It's disturbing to note that both here and in that article, the idea that subsequently being elected to prominent political position (or, as the case may be, coming third) excuses one from being stupid. Surely that's just further indictment, since the voting populace are so stupid they don't even notice!

sorry but she is just plain dumb. There is nothing inherently feminist about defending fools. I would feel the exact same way about a guy in that situation.

Granted, men don't have absurd pageants, but that's a different issue all together.

"There is nothing inherently feminist about defending fools."

Absolutely right.

This dimwit isn't being attacked because she's female. She's being attacked because she's a dimwit. Moron knows no gender.

That said, there IS a feminist issue here, and it's a clear one: the promotion of beauty over brains is what leads our culture to produce these pretty little idiots in the first place. Until we finally get rid of the idea that a woman's value is entirely contained in her body--whether as a sex object, walking womb or domestic laborer--we will continue to waste perfectly good carbon producing bimbos like this.

"There is nothing inherently feminist about defending fools."

Absolutely right.

This dimwit isn't being attacked because she's female. She's being attacked because she's a dimwit. Moron knows no gender.

That said, there IS a feminist issue here, and it's a clear one: the promotion of beauty over brains is what leads our culture to produce these pretty little idiots in the first place. Until we finally get rid of the idea that a woman's value is entirely contained in her body--whether as a sex object, walking womb or domestic laborer--we will continue to waste perfectly good carbon producing bimbos like this.

I'm sorry, but I just can't bring myself to pity this woman. When I look at her, I see someone that obviously has the looks, and probably has the money to succeed in society. Pageants aren't cheap. She can probably go to any school she wants to (That doesn't listen to her speak).
I'm reserving my feelings for for those genuinely deserving of mercy.

I think that it's obvious that this young woman said some very silly things. But given the sexist undertones of so much of the criticism of her, I'll avoid the dogpile, thank you.

TheTrashQueen -

Did you really just refer to Upton as a bimbo??

OMG.

That said, there IS a feminist issue here, and it's a clear one: the promotion of beauty over brains is what leads our culture to produce these pretty little idiots in the first place.

here here. She's stupid. Stupidity is condemned by all. But, what is more glaring to me is that it showed the futility of the beauty pageant.

In a society where women are trying to get ahead on their minds, the beauty pageant shouldn't exist anymore. The pageants try to acknowledge this reality by making the women answer fairly moronic questions. We all know these questions don't matter. So, in the end, we are left with another program that says to women, hey, you can do well if you are pretty enough. I think most of the women around here would agree and say that this is the wrong message to send women.

i have down-modded this story on Reddit.com dozens of times. there appears to be a strong anti-female contingent there, and they love any story showing a woman being stupid or wrong.

I have to agree 1,000% with Rebecca Traister here.

Why did everybody jump on poor Miss Teen South Carolina, for what basically amounted to a bad take (which, if the show was taped, would have led to her doing a second take so she could get the question right).

And there's more than a little bit of sexism (plus classism, plus regional prejudice against Southerners) here too.

If this was an upper class White male teen from New York or Los Angeles, would this tape ever have made it on YouTube?

Of course not.

Bottom line, this young woman blundered through a stupid, poorly crafted question in a beauty pagent.

She does not deserved to be crucified for this.

And it's really sad to see feminists jumping on her, joining in with the sexists in branding this poor woman as "stupid".

I have to agree 1,000% with Rebecca Traister here.

Why did everybody jump on poor Miss Teen South Carolina, for what basically amounted to a bad take (which, if the show was taped, would have led to her doing a second take so she could get the question right).

And there's more than a little bit of sexism (plus classism, plus regional prejudice against Southerners) here too.

If this was an upper class White male teen from New York or Los Angeles, would this tape ever have made it on YouTube?

Of course not.

Bottom line, this young woman blundered through a stupid, poorly crafted question in a beauty pagent.

She does not deserved to be crucified for this.

And it's really sad to see feminists jumping on her, joining in with the sexists in branding this poor woman as "stupid".

OK, I don't believe you have to like Upton in order to see how this is a feminist issue. (Or should feminism only apply to women we like rather than all women?) The fact of the matter is, our society only pays attention to women and girls if they're both beautiful and dumb (or if they act dumb, like Jessica Simpson) but then they hate them for their stupidity. In my pre-feminist days, I used to do the dumb act all the time because it paid off; I acted confused when I wasn't, I giggled excessively and used hedge words like "I think" and "you know" and "like," and men rewarded me like hell for it with attention and attempts to go out with me. Of course, they never really respected me, and I ended up getting into a lot of fights with supposed male friends when their "haha, look at pretty, dumb, big-tittied Ponies" attitude got to be too much for me. These days, I'm even thinner and have longer hair and almost no acne, which means I get approached a lot more, but once guys find out that I know my way around world events and won't join them in making fun of Britney Spears, they won't touch me with a ten-foot pole. (Well, okay, there are the few who get all their ignorant smacked down by me and then want to sleep with me because they think angry sex would be really fun...But in the end they just get to have lonely sex with themselves.)

In fact, I actually got hate mail this past winter from a psychotic guy I used to be friends with in which he basically berated me for going to college and thinking I'm so great because I have a journalism degree (because, you know, apparently a journalism degree is only for really elite people). And it wasn't an issue of class, because his family has more money anybody I know, and he's in college for computer science. But simply by being female and getting an education, I became an object of hatred for him, while girls like Upton become objects of hatred for being "dumb."
It's sad, because it makes us hated no matter what.

I also think women who think they're so above and better than Upton should consider whether they've ever been condescended to for being female. Even though I'm pretty sure I'm smarter than most men out there, men who don't know me treat me like the dumbest box of rocks ever to emerge from a volcano. For instance, at a party this weekend, a guy who I was having a conversation with said something I didn't quite catch about somebody being vindictive. When I said "What?" he fucking defined the word vindictive for me. Seriously. Who DEFINES a goddamn word they just used when somebody says "What?" at a loud party? In another instance, I was getting on the bus on what was apparently a festival day, so bus rides were free. When I tried to pay my fare, the driver waved his hand in my face and said, "Yoo-hoo, free fares today," and rolling his eyes, pointed to a sign on the fare box saying fares were free. A few stops later, a man got on the bus
and also tried to pay. The driver's response to him? "Don't worry about it, sir -- Rides are free today!" So yes, I think that people's love of videos like this has implications for women everywhere, and every woman who's ever been condescended to because of her gender should care about the "dumb blonde" phenomenon. People love videos like this because it tells them what they want to believe about women and girls. And because of that, this shit affects all of us, no matter how holier than thou we want to act. Just because we're not as dumb as Upton doesn't mean people won't think we are and treat us accordingly.

It's not sexist to point out the stupidity of her answer.
It IS sexist to dog-pile her and use her as "proof" that women and girls are stupid and worthless. And that's what's happening with YouTube and every other website on which she's been dragged through the mud.
Our society places more importance on girls' appearance than their brains, and then it crucifies them when they live up to that standard by being ditzy and beautiful. THAT is what's unfair, the Catch-22.

SarahMC, your comment just reminded me of something I read in the book the Mismeasure of Women. They did a study of communications between genders, and they found that, as most of us probably know, women use more of the hedge words I mentioned above ("like," "you know," "um," "I mean," etc). What was particularly striking was that while more women found it irritating when people used those words, men trusted women more if they used hedge words. There was also some other fucked up component to it, which was something like men thought women who didn't use hedge words were more intelligent -- yet again, they didn't trust them. So basically, our choices are either to be dumb and trustworthy or intelligent and untrustworthy. Either way, in a society where the people with power think like that, it means our words are never worth listening to.

Does that fact that she may very well be unintelligent make her any less worthy of the rights we fight for as feminists? Last time I checked, being a woman was the only qualification. That said, yes, she did say something incoherent on national television during the Miss Teen USA pageant. And yes, it was funny. But really, it wasn't THAT funny that it deserves the immense internet hounding that it's received, and I think that's the crux, as some other posters have said, of the matter--it's the misogynistic, sexist, condescending way in which people describe/talk about her that makes this a feminist issue.

I don't think anybody has claimed that this young woman should be denied the fruits of feminism just because she made an ass of herself on national television. Nor do I think anyone here would say that.

That being clear, the fact remains that she did make an ass out of herself. And that's going to mean that people are going to comment on it. There's nothing wrong, in and of itself, with that. And the fact that many (or even most) of the comments on the web have been shitty, misogynistic, and sexist doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a legitimate comment on what happened.

Did she screw up? Yeah. Did she look like a collossal idiot, and possibly a racist? Yeah. Can we here on Feministing discuss that honestly, even though others on the web are being sexist, without it being a betrayal of feminism? Yeah, I think so.

Just because other people's comments are sexist doesn't make ours that way, and it doesn't make it impossible or cruel to discuss what happened, so long as we're not being sexist.

I feel that there are a couple of issues at work here, and I haven't decided completely how I feel about it. I think this girl is taking shit from all sides on this. Men are quick to laugh their asses off because not only because she has a certain power because she happens to be gorgeous, and therefore needs to be taken down a notch, but also because she seems to fit a stereotype of the dumb blond -- pretty but stupid, and therefore easily duped into submission. She's also getting ridiculed by feminists and all those who think that pageants are shallow and prejudicial to society in some way, because if she's stupid enough to be in a pageant, then she's deserving of our scorn. I guess this sort of thing has made strange bedfellows of the sexists and feminists.
Again, I’m not sure how to feel about her ridicule. Obviously she gave a very stupid answer to a somewhat bizarre and misleading question. But I also don’t think we should point and laugh with the attitude of “ha ha pretty girls are stooopid!� I think that attitude fits in better with anti-feminists.

That's my whole point, though. Has anyone here said she's stupid because she's pretty? (Unless they were saying society has tried to teach her that being pretty is better than being smart.)

She's pretty. She came off incredibly stupid. The two don't necessarily have to be linked, and I don't think anyone here has been proposing the first as the cause of the second. Unless I've vastly misunderstood the conversation as it's taken place.

I don't even know why so many people are (still) talking about this. Anyone who believes her answer was sincere and not a product of anxiety needs to rethink who the real tart is. Public speaking is a weakness of mine, and if I were on stage with bright lights shining on my face in front of millions of people, I probably would have said the same thing.

While defending her isn't inherently feminist, neither is picking on her. This isn't feminist news. Nobody at Feministing or any other feminist site would be talking about the pageant at all if Upton didn't mess up. I think some feminists believe that Upton is fair game to criticize because she does pageants, and most feminists (including me) believe pageants are anti-feminist. There were 50 other young women on that stage, a handful of judges, a slew of directors and producers, dozens of sponsers, and an audience of millions. Surely they are endorsing pageantry as much, maybe even more, than Upton?

Did she screw up? Yeah. Did she look like a collossal idiot, and possibly a racist? Yeah. Can we here on Feministing discuss that honestly, even though others on the web are being sexist, without it being a betrayal of feminism? Yeah, I think so.

Actually, Jessica's original post asks why people are laughing so hard at her, not whether she's stupid. To my mind, that says this was going to be a discussion of society's reaction to her and how sexism is playing into that. Instead, I've seen a lot of "She's dumb, so I don't feel sorry for her." Well, great, I think she's dumb, too, but if I wanted to discuss that I'd go start my own thread about it, or join one of the hundreds of already-existing Internet forums on that topic. The question, as I see it, is why people are so gleeful whenever a female does something stupid. And why people have Photoshopped pictures of her wearing a sash that says "Dumb Bitch," insinuating that her horrible, horrible femaleness is somehow linked to her intelligence. I don't think anybody here thinks she's a rocket scientist; rather, we want to know why people love it when girls and women fuck up. This fact can be attested to by anybody who's ever stood in line at the grocery store looking at trashy magazines that pick apart every stupid thing that every female celebrity has ever done. Yes, a lot of female celebrities seem to be shallow and unintelligent, but so are a lot of male celebrities. So why is it that people are so happy when FEMALES fail?

Even kids on the debate team sometimes flub and flounder like this. Why judge her, in particular, so harshly? It seems unusually cruel to keep insisting that she's a complete idiot when she isn't even a full adult yet.

The pageant culture held her up to an unattainable standard - which explains why she looks so much older than she is, for one. So why is it her fault, in particular, for falling short of a ridiculous standard we think no one should be held to?

What shocks me is that she made it to fourth place with an answer like that. It kind of invalidates the Q&A portion of the contest. It almost wish that pageants would eliminate the Q&A and stop pretending that they care about women's intelligence.
And wouldn't it be better to spend our time talking about all the high school girls winning science fairs, etc.? I mean, I just saw this one girl on the news who's 18 and discovered a new way to treat or detect cancer. SHE deserves serious props.

FEMily!:

Yes!

"I just saw this one girl on the news who's 18 and discovered a new way to treat or detect cancer."

I don't suppose you could find a link? That'd be nice to see.

I don't suppose you could find a link? That'd be nice to see.
I've been looking for a link since last night, but I can't find one. I wish I'd paid more attention to the news, but I just had it on as background noise.
What I remember is that the girl is 18, from California, and is going to Harvard. I wish I could remember exactly what her discovery was.

ShifterCat, I found the article;
http://www.sacbee.com/107/story/352972.html. She discovered a new technique that could be used to detect cancer.

A comparison:

A while ago a young smart feminist blogger was in a situation where her photo was taken with a former President. There was nothing /wrong/ with the photo but it showed a certain inexperience in having photos taken and with the whole visual media machine.

How is this situation different? I have no idea if the contestant is smart or not so let's assume she is and got in front of the lights and showed a serious lack of experience with such situations.

Conducting oneself with smarts and grace on national television with the pressure on is hard.

I choose to believe this is a smart capable young woman who seized up under pressure. Would I have done better as a teenager? I doubt it. I have a PhD is astrophysics now. Who knows? Maybe this teenager will in ten years.

Chris