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It would be unfair to say that Miss America is not about beauty at all -- but it's also unfair to say that it's entirely about beauty.
Look at it this way: Miss America is supposed to be the ideal American woman. This means that she is not only supposed to represent ideals physically, but mentally, socially, morally, etc. Letting a really ugly woman win the pageant would be just as ridiculous as letting a woman who has a 1.3 GPA win, or a woman who's been in jail for child abuse, or any woman who has a major flaw.
Yes, Miss America started out as a beauty pageant because, back in the 1920s or whenever it was started, the ideal woman was only beautiful, and nothing else. However, over the years the concept of the ideal woman has changed, and the pageant has changed with it.
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