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The Miss America Organization
Review: 'Being Miss America' by Kate Shindle
Review: 'Being Miss America' by Kate Shindle

The Miss America Pageant: good thing or bad thing? In this well-researched, compellingly written, page-turner of a memoir/journalistic exposé, former Miss America Kate Shindle says it's both: "The largest provider of scholarships for women in the world" and an inept, backward organization that "simply doesn't do much to brand itself except put young women in crowns on television." Full disclosure: Like many feminists of a certain age, I grew up a vociferous opponent of the whole Miss America megillah. On Sept. 7, 1968, a few hundred women traveled to Atlantic City, N.J., to protest the pageant. They wore dresses made of lunch meat slices, crowned a...