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(NYASATIMES) Malawi to hold first ever Miss Biggy ‘Matofotofo’ pageant

Malawi to hold first ever Miss Biggy ‘Matofotofo’ pageant
By Nyasa Times
Published: December 14, 2009

[From the BBC website: The promoter of the pageant is Lwazi Mbowa. She felt that there was no place for swimwear in a contest that challenges perceptions of beauty. "This is about the true beauty of Africa," she says. "Big women are for chiefs and kings, and we can’t expose chiefs' items in public, so swimwear is completely out."]

"This is about the true beauty of Africa," she says. "Big women are for chiefs and kings, and we can’t expose chiefs' items in public, so swimwear is completely out."

Malawi will hold the inaugural Miss Biggy Matofotofo beauty contest for women who wear size 40 and above, with no restrictions on age, height and marital status. The Fat Pageant will be launched in Lilongwe on Thursday by Lwazi promotions.

Pageant organizer Lwazi Mbowa (pictured) who has been organizing the contest in Zimbabwe said Matofotofo means big and fluffy in the Ndebele language.

“We want to promote big confidence in big women,” she said. “Most have lost confidence, sometimes in minibuses we are asked to pay double fee because of our fat size.”

She said the contest aims at dislodging stereotypes that for a long time had been associated with weighty women. It also aimed at abandoning the western concept of beauty which does not appreciate well endowed African women.

Mbowa said she is working on modalities to popularize the unique beauty contest throughout Africa.

The western idea that beauty is only in the slim and tall was hammered into Africans during colonialism and it became the widely accepted conceptualization of beauty to the extent that all beauty pageants continent-wide emphasized on weight and height restrictions.

The coming of Miss-Biggy Matofotofo, therefore, would be a welcome development, as Africa would have shown its capability to redefine beauty according to its own values.

Labels: MALAWI, MISS ELECTIONS

posted by MrK @ 6:15 PM