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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
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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
