Miss America: Kira Kazantsev

I recently just wrote a blog post about the extreme stereotypes placed on pageantry and girls who compete in them, but I realized that I focused very broadly on the stereotypes and hatred on pageants as a whole. I would like to focus on the stereotypes and harassment made specifically on our new Miss America. When the new Miss America, Kira Kazanstev was crowned, I was ecstatic and so very happy for her and her year to come. Unfortunately, others were not as impressed. I saw news articles, Facebook posts, tweets, all bashing on our newly crowned queen. Every article, tweet, post, were all stating, "Miss America won by a cup song", "She isn't talented", "You shouldn't have another Miss America from New York" and so much more on top of that. All these stories kept stating all of her flaws, but never complimented her strengths.

Kira worked so hard to prep for the Miss America competition not only in getting fit, practicing interview, and her evening gown walk, but she did hours upon hours of community service events, helped out at the Children's Miracle Network, informed others about STEM, and promoted her platform throughout the entire state of New York. When all of her work was paid off when she won Miss America, so many people were complaining about her success, instead of celebrating it. She finally achieved her life long dream of becoming Miss America and yet she received so much backlash because she sat on the ground and sang? What's so bad about that? Not only did she work so hard to become Miss America, she already has the qualifications of a great Miss America. Did you know Kira's parents immigrated from Russia to America and now she is trilingual speaking English, Spanish, and Russian fluently? She also goes to Holstra University triple majoring in Political Science, Geography, and Global Studies, and is now going to law school. Her scholarship money she won from Miss America is granting her ability to be debt free when she goes to law school to become a lawyer. So no, she won't be using the cash she won to buy more shoes, but instead placing it towards her education. Her platform, Love Shouldn't Hurt: Protecting Women Against Domestic Violence promotes the issue of eliminating domestic violence, where she speaks about her story of abuse at various shelters and homes about this important issue. 

Very recently, journalist found out that Kira Kazanstev was kicked out of her sorority for abusive hazing and it went viral. On Good Morning America and on Kira's blog, she states that she was only kicked out for sending an email that was "mean" and was only joking for the matter as well. While this is not a good reputation to have as Miss America, can we just all admit we all make mistakes? The great thing about Kira was that she owned up to her mistake (even though journalist blew it way out of proportions) and realized that she's going to make something positive out of it by informing young ladies today regarding the issue of hazing and overcoming her mistake. She took a crisis that could've ruined her reputation into something inspirational.

If you haven't realized already, Kira Kazanstev is pretty much superwomen. Not only is she drop dead gorgeous and maintains a healthy life style, she is intelligent and passionate about issues we are all facing today, she loves being an inspiration to others, and just having fun in life. Whatever comments, tweets, posts, that don't support Kira should all be deleted. This woman worked hard to be where she is at today, the least we could do is say congrats!