THEATRE-KENYA: Miss Malaika Contest Heats Up

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Katy Salmon

NAIROBI, Sep 3 2002 (IPS) - It’s a Friday night. Nairobi’s Carnivore night-club is packed with a rowdy crowd, eager to check out the 23 girls competing in the semi-finals of the Miss Malaika beauty pageant.

When the emcee finally announces, after a two hour delay, “Please give a warm welcome to the Miss Malaika beauty contenders,” her voice is drowned out by screaming and cheers.

Miss Malaika – which means Angel in Kiswahili – is the fifth beauty pageant to be launched in Kenya. There are so many pageants in the country that several of the girls on the catwalk tonight have already been seen in other competitions.

Yet the show’s organiser, Pinky Ghelani, herself a former Miss ‘India Kenya’, swears that Miss Malaika is different from all the other beauty pageants.

“The reason it is different is because it’s a truly African pageant. There’s no height restriction as such. 5 foot 3? Yes, good enough.

“There are no waist, bust or hip size requirements. You don’t have to be a certain size though you do have to look proportionate,” she explains.

Miss Malaika also emphasises the natural look. Cosmetic surgery and hair extensions are banned.

“And more than beauty, we are looking for intellect,” assures Pinky.

“The girls should be able to confidently discuss issues with different heads of African states. She should be aware of current events and the issues that are affecting the continent right now,” she says.

However, intellect is certainly not what one enthusiastic member of the audience, Leo Kerama, is interested in.

“I just came to have pints and to look at their nice bodies and you know. big you know. big matatas (breasts),” he sniggers.

Former Miss Tourism Kenya, Debra Sanaipei, is quick to dismiss such sexist comments.

“Men in Kenya may see it as a meat market but we as models have seen that we have moved up from that,” she defends.

Sanaipei asserts that she has done a lot of practical good for her country as a beauty queen.

“We were there to promote tourism. It’s all about getting Kenyan culture abroad and making sure that people know what culture there is in Kenya,” she explains.

“We got to go to London, Chicago, Germany, talk on international stages, get on CNN. And given that chance you get so much public recognition, international recognition,” Sanaipei says.

Sanaipei soon became one of the most high-profile celebrities in Kenya. She was such a hit as Miss Tourism 2001, there was even a debate in the Daily Nation newspaper over whether her term should be extended.

“Magazines still call and say can we have you saying something about women’s issues, children’s issues, female genital mutilation, tourism, politics,” she says.

This is something that surprises outsiders.

“It’s not really worth anything is it?” says Rachel Armstrong, a tourist from New Zealand, watching the girls parade on the catwalk.

“It’s just people standing up there and kind of being pretty. That just doesn’t contribute anything to world any more does it? Maybe in the old days that’s what women were meant to be,” she ponders.

“We were standing there, two trucks of overland travellers, just taking the piss out of it the whole time. Because you know, ‘Oh, I want to save children and save the world’,” she imitates.

“Do you really want to do that or are you just saying that to win the competition and win a bit of cash or win a prize?

“No one takes them seriously from New Zealand,” she says.

But Kenyans take their beauty queens very seriously – and believe that they serve as important ambassadors for their country.

“We’ve gone ahead from the basic concept of just considering it a beauty concept to actually using it to sell some of the assets that we have in the country,” says Zawadi Mawanda, a reporter with Nation FM.

They are also role models for young people.

“Parents come and tell us that my daughter wants to be like you. It’s not just because of the pageant. It’s what we did with our crowns. Parents are seeing that and they are also encouraging their kids to join pageants and do something,” says Yolande Masinde, Miss Kenya 2000.

Others do not buy into this argument. Mumbi Macera, a lecturer on gender at the University of Nairobi, believes the girls who take part in Kenya’s numerous beauty pageants could do with a strong dose of feminist education.

“Feminist ideas are new things which most of the contestants probably don’t even think about. From my point of view, I see beauty pageants as ways of objectifying, commercialising and sexualising the female body,” she says.

“The girls may not be sensitised and educated about the facts,” she worries, pointing out that many of them are doing it for the large cash prizes.

Others believes the girls – and they are always called girls even though some are nearly 30 years old – are only too aware of what they are doing, but feel they have no other options.

“We’ve got a number of girls here looking for their big break,” says Wayua Muli, a reporter with the Saturday Nation magazine.

“They’ve been conned into thinking that a beauty pageant is the way to get recognised, your foothold into the world of movies and music. They look at people like the former Miss America, Vanessa Williams, (now a successful singer and actress) and they think that that’s how you get into it.

“Given a country like Kenya where you really don’t have any other opportunities — we don’t have talent scouts for singers, we don’t have talent scouts for acting — this is how they think they’ll get their big break,” she says.

For Miss Malaika contestant Irene Odipo, being a beauty queen is almost as good as becoming the president.

“Let’s face it, Africa is not at the level right now where we are ready to have a female president. It might happen. I don’t know,” she says.

“But to have something like a beauty pageant, it’s not at the same standard but it’s something similar. You have a title and you have a position in society so you can use it to your advantage and to the advantage of other people,” she says.

This might not be so far fetched. Sanaipei, whose father is a prominent Cabinet minister, says her ambition is to become Kenya’s first female president. Just watch this space.