'Miss Atom 2009'
by Jess McCabe // 16 February 2009, 12:14
Women working in Russia's nuclear power industry are competing to become 'Miss Atom 2009', according to Wired Magazine blog Danger Room, which decided to post a shot of one of the contestants in front of a nuclear power plant:
Alyona is a first-time contestant in "Miss Atom," an annual beauty contest open to (female) employees of Russia's nuclear industry. This is shaping up as a perennial favorite for readers of DANGER ROOM
I don't recommend reading the comments on that post.
There's nothing surprising about Wired, a magazine which is regularly criticised for assuming all its readers are (hetro) men and that its techy coverage is only of interest to men, 'reporting on' a sexist competition like this. But it's still disappointing.
The competition website is in Russian, of course, but the competition appears to have been sponsored by state-owned nuclear power company JSC Atomenergoprom.
Beauty pagaents are annoying at the best of times, but when they centre on the workplace another element is added to the equation.
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Aimee // Posted 17 February 2009 at 09:31
What I find most sad is that there are women willing (obliged?) to compromise their professional integrity to partake in this kind of thing. Not good.