BRISBANE — When the Cross-Campus Women's Collective heard that the “male” magazine FHM was putting on a “Miss University” competition at the Tivoli Theatre in Fortitude Valley on September 17, it called for a protest of the sexist event.

With placards proclaiming “Education not exploitation”, “Women are not sex objects” and “Women's bodies are not commodities”, Resistance members stunned people arriving for the “beauty” pageant.

The show's organiser fronted the picket and media cameras to explain that the pageant was not just about beauty, but also intelligence, wheeling out a male model studying microelectronic engineering to prove his point. Later, the MC of the show attempted to shout the protesters down, taunting Korean women who had joined the picket with racist remarks.

An editor of FHM also attempted to justify the pageant on the grounds that “it was not exploitative of women's bodies, because women had a choice whether they wanted to enter or not”.

Resistance members continued their loud protest. One young woman turned around at the door and left, remarking: “I didn't realise I was coming to a meat market!”

From Green Left Weekly, September 25, 2002.
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