What people don’t realize about beauty pageants is that they are never just about beauty.
Beyond the glittering gowns, practiced smiles, and stage lights bright enough to blind, there are girls silently suffering as they pretend to look effortlessly beautiful—feet bruised from high heels, stomachs upset by stress, and minds weighed down by the effort of trying to be enough for a room full of strangers.
For first-timers especially, the experience feels like stepping onto a stage that magnifies every insecurity you have earlier managed to ignore.
Before the pageant even began, expectations were aplenty: Lose weight. Practice your pasarela. Walk more. Walk farther. Nine kilometers. Ten kilometers. Again and again until the body learns elegance through exhaustion.
And for someone already struggling with body image, even gentle advice can start sounding like confirmation that something needs urgent fixing. The mirror becomes more cruel during the preparation phase.
Scoliosis suddenly feels more obvious under fitted dresses. A certain awkwardness becomes unbearable to behold. Even casual comments linger in the mind longer than they should. Are they being helpful? Or just putting you down?
There are days when backing out feels easier than staying on, especially during rehearsals. How painful, in high heels that numb the feet, under harsh lighting, to stand beside other girls who look so naturally graceful.
There’s a phrase said often, sometimes jokingly, sometimes not: “like putting lipstick on a pig.” Somehow, despite feeling beautiful before entering the competition, you become slowly convinced of the truth of the phrase.
Day of reckoning
The pageant day itself passed like a blur.
The production number disappeared into nervousness. The uniform wear felt unforgiving, especially once the cameras began clicking. The bun hairstyle looked terrible in her view; all she could think of was how round her face looked beneath the bright lights.
During the evening gown competition, insecurity wrapped her tighter than the gown itself. She worried about her arms, her posture, her walk.
People told her she did well. But self-consciousness has a cruel way of muting compliments.
Then came the question-and-answer portion. Ironically, speaking had always been the one thing she felt confident about. But standing there smiling, listening to the other contestants answering rapidly and flawlessly, she became overwhelmed by pressure. She could barely focus; her thoughts drowned her.
And then her name was called, and the question was asked. She answered slowly, not because she lacked ideas but because she wanted every sentence to breathe before being released into the microphone. Calm, composed, intentional—the kind of answer that sounded more sincere than rehearsed.
Still, after it ended, the nervousness returned in full force. Because no matter how many people insist that events like these are “just for fun,” competition has a way of exposing the rawest parts of being human: the desire to feel chosen, validated, and significant, especially for someone who feels she has to prove herself worthy of taking up space.
After the Q&A, the contestants were called back onstage. A singer performed during the judges’ deliberation. Nobody ever talked about this part either—the unbearable ache of standing there, the silent prayer not to faint, the smile becoming more forced with every passing minute. At one point, she wanted nothing more than to sit on the floor, and maybe disappear.
Awards
Now the awards were being given out. She was not Best in Uniform. Not Best in Formal Wear.
When “Ms. Elocution” echoed through the venue, relief bloomed for a moment. Speaking—truly speaking—had always been the one thing she trusted herself to do well.
Came the major awards. And she was announced Second Runner-Up.
It’s a strange feeling, placing high enough to be noticed yet leaving the stage with questions sitting heavily on your chest. Questions you know are impolite to say aloud, questions about fairness, criteria, and what people truly value in competitions intended to represent more than mere appearance.
Maybe admitting that feels bitter. But honesty often is. Because beneath every polished smile onstage, beneath the makeup and rhinestones, is still a human being quietly carrying disappointment.
Yet perhaps the hardest was not losing the crown but realizing how quickly a pageant can make a girl forget herself. How she can walk into a competition feeling beautiful and leave questioning every inch of her body. How applause and insecurity can exist at the same time. How validation can still feel incomplete.
But somewhere between the trembling hands gripping a microphone, the numbness in her feet, the ache of standing under bright lights for too long, and the sound of her name being announced as Ms. Elocution, she stayed.
Even when she wanted to quit, she stayed. Even when she felt ugly beside the other contestants and even when she believed everyone else deserved the stage more than she did, she stayed.
And perhaps that is what audiences never truly see in pageants. The strongest girls are not always the ones wearing the crown at the end of the night. Sometimes, they are simply the girls brave enough to remain standing while being seen.
I know this because I was the girl standing there in painful heels, smiling beneath the blinding lights, pretending that being Second Runner-Up did not hurt.
After the show
The truth is, when I got home that night, I did not feel beautiful.
I removed my makeup slowly in front of the mirror, staring at the face and form people had complimented hours earlier. All I could see were the things I had spent the entire competition trying to hide—my arms, my posture, the curve of my spine…
It felt ridiculous, honestly. How could someone deemed fit for an award feel like lipstick had been put on a pig when the lights were turned off?
I kept replaying everything in my head like a punishment: the production number I thought I ruined, the photos where I looked too big, the moments during the evening-gown segment where I felt every insecurity clinging onto me tighter than the fabric itself.
Even my answer during Q&A—the same answer people praised—became something I dissected endlessly, searching for flaws nobody else probably noticed.
And maybe that’s the cruelest part about insecurity: it survives even applause. People congratulated me for being Ms. Elocution and Second Runner-Up, but some strange part of me still grieved.
Deep down, I wanted the awards to finally silence the voice in my head that had spent years convincing me I was never enough.
I wanted winning to fix something in me. Instead, it made the voice louder.
Hunger
The truth is, pageants reveal not only confidence but also hunger—the hunger to be admired, to feel chosen in a world which constantly teaches girls that their worth can be measured through appearance, applause, and titles stitched onto satin sashes.
And I hated how badly I wanted that validation. When the crowns were being announced, I smiled gracefully like everyone expected me to. But inside, I felt disappointment clawing at my chest. I wondered why eloquence mattered less than spectacle, why beauty sometimes spoke louder than substance, even in rooms meant to celebrate intelligence and purpose.
But after all that—the pain, the pressure, the insecurity, the jealousy I am ashamed to admit, the exhaustion of standing beautifully while falling apart internally—I think what stayed with me most was this: I realized that confidence is not the absence of insecurity.
Confidence is walking onto the stage despite it. It is answering clearly while your thoughts are shaking. It is standing beneath bright lights while feeling painfully visible. It is smiling through disappointment.
And maybe I was never the prettiest girl there. Maybe I was never the girl most likely to win. But I was the girl who showed up terrified and still stayed until the very end.
And somehow, I think that version of me deserves to be remembered, too. CS
Reinjiel Danica E. dela Cruz, a 20-year-old nursing student, says she loves turning her struggles, life experiences and advocacies against unfairness into words that are felt, not just read.
