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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 28, 1972)
dai n n u "Sll JIM II 1 1V7N friday, january 28, 1972 lincoln, nebraska vol. 95, no. 59 You've gone a long way, baby by H. J. Cummins A Virginia Slims (the "You've come a long way, baby," brand) advertisement claims Susan Ladwig was voted Miss Congeniality at the 1917 Atlantic City Beauty Pageant because she was the only contestant who knew where the cigarettes were hidden. Having gone the whole route from local to national beauty pageants, a more recent title holder said she finds beauty contests and Virginia Slims advertisements "absurd," adding she tries to avoid both. A somewhat unusual former contest winner, the University of Nebraska student said she has, since her "reign," "lost my virginity in the back seat of a car to a man whom I'd only seen once because I felt I was ready." She's also smoked dope, stolen seven dollars of groceries to make Christmas cookies, hitch-hiked to two major American cities and lived with a man for two months. "Yes," said Sonya (not her real name, but one she picked for the article because she said it would win points for any beauty contestant), "I'm a real woman." Other "firsts" Sonya said she's experienced include gradual loss of her belief in God, joining and quitting a sorority and an increasing commitment to women's liberation. She said of all her new experiences, she regrets only stealing. "I really didn't do it as a form of protest against big business," she said. It was only to save money, but I know now it's really the little guy who Berry- defusing the revolution suffers because his or her wages fall or they must pay higher prices when they buy things." Despite her many apparent changes, Sonya said she sees characteristics in her that are unchanged from the pageant days. She told of an evening this summer when she and her roommate went to several Lincoln bars to celebrate her ' roommate's twentieth birthday. "Several railroad men were in Lincoln overnight and as we left the bar they followed us out and asked us where we were going and if they could come. I explained what we were doing and where we were going next." She said her roommate recognized the men's intentions, dismissed them with a few severe words and afterwards she mocked Sonya for not catching it. - "You see," she said, "My true qualities have remained--! 've just stripped off my outer (glamorous) shell." Sonya more seriously described the "outer shell" as a "nice candy coating" she always wore in high school and briefly in college. "I was always trying to be in the lime light and get everthing via feminine charms--but I really didn't know much about anything." Sonya said she saw the local pageant as a "good experience" and important for entering a good sorority. "I happened to win and from then on I was psyched, I lived and breathed preparing for the state competition," she remembers. After winning there Sonya said she successfully became "the center of attraction and I felt very secure." She said she remembers her strategy as a subtle determination to win, explaining she preferred that tactic to the obvious nervous ambitions of the other contestants. Money is a factor in beauty competition, Sonya said, even though the national contestants in the pageant in which she participated . were discouraged from buying much. "My mother was willing to buy me anything," she noted, adding she found it hard to believe that wasn't also true of all the other contestants. She said clothing budgets ranged from nothing to $700 in the national contest. "It was like you were a movie Prophylaxis, or preventing an insurgent movement from ever beginning, is one of the best ways to counteract revolution, a retired Army lieutenant colonel said Thursday. Fred D. Berry's lecture, "Revolution: Social Roots, Establishment Response and the Role of Ideology," reached an almost all-male audience which half filled Henzlik Hall Auditorium. Most of the men at the lecture, which was sponsored by Phalanx, a military fraternity, were ROTC students and officers. Berry outlined causes and solutions to revolution and spoke of responsible' leadership. 'The Establishment should begin to react to revolution before revolution gets started, '"the 22- year Army veteran said. "Revolutions only start when incumbent regimes become blind" to individual and group demands. He said prophylaxis involves those in power anticipating and meeting demands before they occur. A poor example of f fW TTI iX.Jf S l ' " f -HI vr star-all the attention and free things you could get," she said. Competitive spirit is what kept her going-"You get used to that kind of life and you enjoy it," she said. "My main disagreement with the pageant is its accent on glamour," she said, "it was on television because the public wants glamour-it wants to see girls marching around-so they (the pageant promoters) give it to them. "It was originally intended to be a source of college scholarships for women," Sonya said, but she complained the criteria used-including poise and appearance-is wrong. She said she found her crown, which she thought would help her in college', destroying her whole freshman year. "I was always introduced as a beauty queen," she grimaced, "I felt they (her dates) expected some kind of show from me--a dream girl." Sonya has particularly harsh words for her former sorority sisters: 'They are all a bunch of materialistic snobs who think they're wonderful and they this, he said, was the handling of the Black Power movement in the United States. "It is essential that men in power positions see circumstances through a rebel's eyes," said Berry, an assistant professor of political science at Northern Michigan University. 'To many regime incumbents, rebels are mainly lawbreakers." Many officials, said Berry, forget that rebels sincerely believe they are right, "or they wouldn't be fighting." He said rebels are willing to mount barricades and get shot at defending what they believe. Besides prophylaxis, another good response to a revolution is coping with the movement through compromise, Berry said. A third is using the movement's energy for the benefit of the entire society by revitalizing the Establishment. For example, he said some of the things the Black Power movement demands would be good for all society. Poor means of dealing with rebel movements include "extermination of subversives. This is logistically and really want to help society when all they are are people who are too insecure to find out what the world is really like." Her parents fit more easily in her current life, she said. "They're truly loving," she said of them. "They want to love me no matter what I do or believe in. But they hope very, very much I will realize their way is best." Sonya said one of the most amusing parts of her new life style is the way it affects some of her old friends. She told of an ex-sorority sister who called her apartment one night when she (Sonya) was staying at her male friend's house. When told Sonya was not at home, the old friend asked to have Sonya call her back that night, no matter how late she got home. "When my roommate suggested she call my boy friend's house, since I probably wouldn't be home that night," she said, "my friend's dismaved comment was nnlv 'Dh Sonya's not like THAT.' " 'J ethically unfeasible," he said. Another poor response, escalated law and order, "would increase police retaliation." When the insurgent group realized the increased opposition, its resistence would be cemented, Berry said. Incarcerating rebel leaders in the power structure would rob a movement of its leaders, said Berry, but only for a short time. New leadership would then emerge. Berry explained that small groups are sometimes pitted against the larger society or the Establishment. "People are rewarded for conforming to society's demands," he said. "Nonconformity is punished." He explained how some groups rebel because they are deprived of material goods, prestige or class standing. Others are frustrated by an inconsistency in the Protestant Ethic, which says that "God favors those who work hard and save tneir money. t f
