In the space of one week, Miss USA 2023, Noelia Voigt, and Miss Teen USA 2023, UmaSofia Srivastava gave up their titles. The resignations have sparked a conversation about the well-being and treatment of participants in pageantry—indeed, of the very idea standing behind beauty pageants, where young people, most often women, are put on display and “graded” on their personal characteristics, both their assets and shortcomings.
Voigt wrote an eight-page resignation letter in which she described “a toxic work environment within the Miss USA Organization that, at best, is poor management and, at worst, is bullying and harassment.” According to The New York Times, she also “complained in her letter that the organization had delayed making good on her prize winnings.”
Now the mothers of Noelia Voigt and UmaSofia Srivastava are speaking out about the organization and their mistreatment of the young women. On Good Morning America, they stated that their daughters were “ill-treated, abused, bullied and cornered” by pageant organizers, and that those circumstances led to the resignations last week.
Barbara Srivastava, mother of Miss Teen USA 2023 UmaSofia Srivastava, and Jackeline Voigt, mother of Miss USA 2023 Noelia Voigt, told GMA that NDAs prevented their daughters from speaking out personally.
Voigt’s mother recounted a specific example of an unwanted advance made to her daughter at a Christmas parade in which a man asked if she was “into old men with money.” The incident “made Noelia very, very uncomfortable,” Jackeline Voigt said, adding, “She was so upset. This is not what she worked so hard for.”
Barbara Srivastava offered a glimpse into the tight control that the organization has on the contestants, saying that her daughter’s personal social media accounts were monitored and controlled by pageant officials. “The job of their dreams turned out to be a nightmare,” she told GMA.
Both mothers have stated that their daughters never struggled with mental health until they won the crowns, and that they were forbidden from speaking out about their distress by NDA’s– confidentiality agreements.
The sexualization of any beauty contest participant—and even more, the winner wearing the crown—is inescapable, but today the oath of silence that used to be part of the unspoken deal between the organizers and the participants of beauty contests has broken. Social media users are calling these young women heroes for speaking out about a situation that has mentally damaged innumerable young people.
“Society has come a long way. Them resigning and coming forward would be unimaginable 20 years ago. It’s why we teach consent in school, it’s why we need less economic inequality, it’s why women should be valued, and value themselves, for who they are and not what they look like.”
Another thanked them for their courage: “Human rights are basic. Legacies don’t deserve this perpetuation which is cloaked under silence. Mahalo sincerely for speaking up!”
Others pointed to the suicide of Chesley Krist, Miss USA 2019, who jumped from the 29th floor of her building The Orion, in Manhattan, as another casualty of the failed and malignant Miss USA organization; It was a tragedy that could have been prevented.
