{"id":1049,"date":"2005-11-05T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-05T18:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/05\/dogwood-girls\/"},"modified":"2005-11-05T11:12:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-05T18:12:00","slug":"dogwood-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/05\/dogwood-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Dogwood Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Head to toe in frilly yellow, she swayed in front of Wal-Mart, parasol in hand, greeting the Mobile area shoppers. In the flesh: a Dogwood Trail Maiden<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I had to look up the actual name when I got back to my parents. I have a hard time remembering “Dogwood Trail Maiden” and have called them “Magnolia Misses,” “Azalea Girls,” “Confederate Princesses,” and “Plantation Roses.” I don’t think that any of my names are all that bad, but apparently, messing up the title of a Dogwood Trail Maiden is a serious no-no in these parts. I’ve learned to simply ask about the local girls’ “Scholarship contest.”<\/p>\n

I have a hard time with the Dogwood Trail gig. So what if they might be able to get a few bucks? They have to dress up in ridiculous antibellum gowns, carry parasols, and act like rejects from Gone With the Wind. Scarlett O’Hara would have never acted so demure and docile. Something about all of it makes me feel that the real purpose and intent has nothing to do with giving girls a scholarship opportunity.<\/p>\n

Truly, I don’t want to be hard on these girls. But I’ve learned some insider things about the Dogwood Trail (having a family friend who is an organizer and whose daughter was THE actual Dogwood Queen — and having a father who served as a judge in the last pageant.)<\/p>\n

— The pageant is overwhelmingly white. The few girls of color who participate (in my opinion) are just there so that the organizers can claim a blind eye to the issues of race and privilege weaved through the event.
— The pageant is overwhelming rich. These are private school girls.
— The pageant, although claiming to be about intelligence, poise, speaking skills, and talent, is about being pretty. (I have it from the inside that judges shockingly discuss issues of beauty — size, skin, height, weight, hair and eyes — as key aspects of their judging tally, and that these were viewed as much more important than academic records, presentation, speaking skills, and poise.)<\/p>\n

And so I ask. Do boys get paraded about in ridiculous clothing? Why do we torture young women and teach them to like it?<\/p>\n

So, there she was. A Dogwood Trail Maiden. Selling the Dogwood Trail calendar (12-months of the girls in various poises amongst the magnolia and azaleas), smiling sweetly to all who passed. (I’ve actually seen the calendar up close. It’s terrifying.) I couldn’t look at her, she looked absurd. Plus, the risk of me saying something like “wasn’t Halloween last week?” was too great.<\/p>\n

Dogwood Trail Maidens. Honestly. I mean, HONESTLY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Head to toe in frilly yellow, she swayed in front of Wal-Mart, parasol in hand, greeting the Mobile area shoppers. In the flesh: a Dogwood Trail Maiden. I had to look up the actual name when I got back to my parents. I have a hard time remembering “Dogwood Trail Maiden” and have called them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}