THOROUGHLY MODERN...

...Millie is a musical about Millie Dillmount whose ambition it is to find work as a stenographer to a wealthy man and then marry her boss. In both intending to earn her own living and in intending to marry for money rather than love, she is "thoroughly modern" for the 1920s.

We no longer live in the 1920's, and values, norms and traditions have experienced a paradigm shift, yet there is STILL a stigma attached to being an unmarried or single mother. Current Miss pageants do not, as a rule, welcome entrants from this social grouping since the winners' circumstances would negatively impact on either the pageant or family schedule or both.

Bottom line is you're either young, unmarried and childless and you enter a Miss pageant, or you're older, married with children, and bake cookies and attend PTA's as a Mrs pageant winner (well in most instances before anyone has a fanny wobble). Not an ideal situation for the ever-growing number of women who fall into the "unmarried with children" category.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The Winelands Winter Queen pageant, being organised in Paarl nogal (and we thought the platteland was so backward and "konservatief"), is a new pageant that, whilst it does not cater solely for the aforementioned group, does welcome all entrants aged 25 to 45 irrespective of their marital or maternal status.

If you would like to dabble in pageantry and were previously excluded because of your personal status, perhaps you should give this pageant a bash. It is run by a very reputable organisation, and you will be involved in "real" social upliftment programs and projects, and will be afforded the opportunity to attend functions looking fabulous without the baggage of the obligatory husband.