It is the mother of all insults.
of Miss America and Miss World Pageants often ban some or all mothers from participating, but one New York woman with a 6-year-old son is hoping to change that.
Danielle Hazel, along with prominent women's rights attorney Gloria Allred, revealed on Monday that she had filed a discrimination complaint against the pageant with the city's Human Rights Commission.
“Being pregnant or becoming a parent is not a crime,” Allred said.
Hazel, a 25-year-old mother from Brooklyn, claims that the Miss America pageant only allows female contestants to be “without legal dependents,” while Miss World contestants must be “unmarried, childless and not pregnant.”
Stuart Moskovitz, a lawyer for the Miss America pageant, argued to The Washington Post on Monday that “there is no ban on mothers” — only mothers who have legal custody of their children.
“The only prohibition is if it is necessary to protect the welfare of a child,” Moskovitz said, claiming that Miss America works “365 days a year” and is busier than the president of the United States.
In the US military, even single mothers can “Family Care PlanThe “grueling Miss America pageant” does not allow for such consideration, even if there are parents willing and able to help with childcare.
“If you have legal dependents, you have to care for those dependents,” Moskovitz said. “Any woman who puts competing in this pageant above the welfare of her children is not Miss America, in any case.”
Even if there is joint custody, the children are put at risk if such mothers compete, the lawyers said.
Hazel said her childhood dream was to compete in a major contest, but “I was shocked to find out later on that I couldn't enter the contest because I have a son.”
The feeling of unfairness was passed on to her young son, Zion, who told his mother, “The rule is ridiculous.”
“I don't want myself or any other women to be held back by these discriminatory application rules,” Hazel said, “I want to show everyone that moms can also be philanthropists, advocates and beauty queens.”
“We call for the elimination of both pageants' discriminatory requirements, which we believe deny and exclude Danielle and other mothers from important business and cultural opportunities simply because they are parents,” Allred added.
The complaint was announced next to the Women's Rights Pioneers Memorial in Manhattan's Central Park Mall.
Joining Hazel in announcing her legal battle on Monday was Veronika Didusenko, who was Miss Ukraine in 2018 but lost her title after Miss World officials discovered she had fathered a child.
“One of the judges at the Miss Ukraine pageant pointed at me live and said, 'She gave birth at 19 and then got divorced. I think it's wrong to have someone like that as a role model,'” Didusenko recalled on Monday.
Didusenko is now a mothers' activist in the beauty pageant world.
Allred has already won victories for mothers on the West Coast, representing mothers in California fighting similar rules. Andrea Quirogahad been barred from competing in the Miss California pageant because she was a mother. The settlement ended a 70-year ban on mothers competing in beauty pageants.
In their new lawsuit, Allred and Hazel are now targeting the two remaining major beauty pageants in hopes of achieving a similar outcome and helping the next generation of mothers avoid discrimination.
“None of these things will change if we don't try,” Allred said.
Representatives for the Miss World pageant did not respond to The Washington Post's request for comment.
