I figured there had to be some kind of mistake when I first stumbled across the news story about a beauty pageant in Saudi Arabia.
“How would that work?” I wondered.
The kingdom isn’t exactly known for it’s progressive views on gender roles. Not that beauty pageants are particularly progressive, but you know what I mean.
The country only recently allowed women to drive and has locked up women in the past for demanding the right to get behind the wheel.
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Progress has been made in recent years, and Saudi women are now allowed to travel abroad, register a divorce or a marriage and apply for official documents without the consent of a male guardian.
However, the country still isn’t considered to be a bastion of gender equality, and it can be quite sensitive about it.
Four years ago, Saudi Arabia significantly restricted trade with Canada — particularly agricultural products such as barley and forage — after then foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland posted a tweet calling for the “immediate release” of detained Saudi women’s rights activists.
So, given all that, I wasn’t sure how a beauty pageant was going to work in that country.
But then I continued reading the story — which is always a good idea — and discovered that it didn’t have anything to do with women.
Instead, this tale was about a beauty contest for camels.
It turns out the annual King Abdulaziz Camel Festival can get rather competitive. That’s probably not a big surprise, considering the prize money totals US$66 million.
Judges make their decisions based on the camels’ heads, necks, humps, dress and postures.
However, breeders trying to get their animals selected as the most beautiful camels have a full bag of tricks at their disposal.
Officials recently lowered the boom on these artificial enhancements after discovering that some breeders had stretched out their animals’ lips and noses, used hormones to increase muscles, injected Botox to enlarge heads and lips, inflated body parts with rubber bands and used fillers to relax faces.
The discoveries sparked a crackdown, and 40 camels were disqualified.
It just goes to show what people are willing to do when prestige, fame — not to mention $66 million — are on the line.
