Crystal Lee was First Runner-Up in the 2014 Miss America pageant, and now she’s part of a tech startup in Silicon Valley. Crystal has written some incisive pieces including one for CNN.com in response to what happened at the most recent Miss America – that is, a contestant answered a question competently and the world exploded. We talk about her background, how exactly one becomes a Miss America contestant, and whether she thinks pageants will be able to escape their undeniably sexist roots!
One Reply to “SIO99: Crystal Lee, 2014 Miss America Runner-Up and Entrepreneur”
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To be honest, and I don’t know if this will offend or hurt your guest, the whole beauty industry trying to tie your personal worth and accomplishment to how some people (the judges) perceive your physical beauty is mindbogglingly toxic to me. I’m happy she managed to find herself in it, and benefit from it, but isn’t it insane in it’s conception? I always get chills when I see this auction of flesh going on – and the recent attempts of having more intellectual themes inserted into beauty pageants is simply profoundly dishonest about why these exist and is simply raising the bar for competing women to insane heights. Like you said, if it’s about something intellectual, have actual competitions. This… pageants…. It’s horrifying.