Eve Gilles Miss France 2024 accused of only winning because of woke judges as pixie and androgynous winner criticized amid claims pageant continues to be sexist.
Define beauty? Sexism? Female virtue? Debate has erupted following the crowning of a Miss France beauty pageant contestant with an androgynous pixie look as the Miss France 2024 winner.
Eve Gilles, 20, from Nord-Pas-de-Calais in northern part of the country was crowned by previous winner Indira Ampiot in front of 7.5 million TV viewers Saturday night.
But the beauty pageant which has been frequently accused of playing up to sexist archetypes is now facing backlash, following accusations it has gone ‘woke’ after the judges chose ‘androgynous‘ Ms Gilles as Miss France 2024 after all previous winners featured more supposedly ‘traditional’ long, flowing hair and curves.
Where’s her long hair and big bountiful breasts?
‘We’re used to seeing beautiful Misses with long hair, but I chose an androgynous look with short hair,’ a defiant Ms Gilles said according to France24.
Gilles who her herself until recently used to sport long flowing hair also praised her win as a win for ‘diversity’ adding: ‘No one should dictate who you are, every woman is different, we’re all unique.’
The pageant winner is chosen half by a public vote and half by a jury (of seven women). While Eve Gilles only came third in the public vote, the panel of judges pushed her into first place.
Gilles, who wants to be a statistician and is studying Maths and Computer Science at Lille University is the first winner in the 103-year history of the pageant who doesn’t have long hair – much to the dismay of some viewers.
EVE GILLES, UN MISSILE !#MissFrance #MissFrance2024 pic.twitter.com/N6I4LHPhAU
— Instant X (@instantx_off) December 17, 2023
‘No longer a beauty contest but a woke contest’
‘Miss France is no longer a beauty contest but a woke contest which is based on inclusiveness,’ one user wrote on social media site, X.
The view was affirmed by others, with one user accusing Gilles of ‘instilling wokist values into society’.
Other negative comments included one who said that she ‘doesn’t look anything like Miss France’ and that ‘we don’t care about her haircut but the androgynous body is obviously there to serve as woke’.
Other commentators countered, posted one fan: ‘Maybe the new #MissFrance isn’t gorgeous in your eyes, but seeing wokeism in her because she has short hair…. It’s just ridiculous.’
Another added: ‘Eve Gilles is the new Miss France 2024, your malicious and useless criticisms won’t change that, she’s sublime.’
‘Eve Gilles isn’t even trans, has never claimed to be trans, but half of the comments about her are transphobic because she has short hair,’ a third said.
Is a women’s value contingent on the length of her and the size of her breasts?
MP Sandrinne Rousseau also came to Ms Gilles’ defence and said: ‘So, in France, in 2023, we measure the progress of respect for women by the length of their hair?
Ms Rousseau also wears her hair in a pixie cut, which has become an important symbol as part of France’s MeToo movement.
Another MP, Karima Delli, wrote: ‘Big support for Ève Gilles, #MissFrance2024, in the face of hateful tweets on social networks of incredible violence!
‘Swallow your venom, she is not only superb, Miss Nord pas de Calais is intelligent in embracing her diversity!’
Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the communist party, also jumped in and wrote: ‘Support for Eve Gilles, elected Miss France, who is already suffering the violence of a society which does not accept that women define themselves in all their diversity.’
Ms Gilles, whose parents are from Réunion, an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas region of France, had campaigned for ‘diversified’ beauty standards in the lead up to the final of the pageant, which has often been seen as sexist.
‘I would like to show that the competition is evolving and society too, that the representation of women is diverse, in my opinion beauty is not limited to a haircut or shapes that we have… or not,’ the contestant said during the final as the Telegraph reported.
‘I want to break the codes, to show that women can be diverse’
In November, she told France’s BFM Grand Lille: ‘I would especially like to defend the image of women, that they can do what they want, that they can be what whatever she likes.
‘I want to break the codes, to show that women can be diverse, that we don’t need to be put in boxes. That’s what I want to show.’
Ms Gilles, who was born in Dunkirk and has an Instagram page for her cat Princess Heidi, is the youngest of three sisters and said it was her grandfather who encouraged her to enter the competition.
‘My family is really very important. It’s my little cocoon. We are very close, we did everything together,’ she said.
Ms Gilles is studying Maths and Computer Science at Lille University and travels back to her family in Quaëdypre, near Dunkirk, every weekend.
She had first started studying medicine ‘so as not to regret it later’ but ‘didn’t like it’, Ms Gilles said, adding that she worked in a factory to earn money.
But during the Miss France competition, Ms Gilles was criticised for her hair, her ‘lack of shape’ and ‘thinness’ online.
‘I feel like a woman’
Actress Beatrice Rosen, who said she favoured another contestant, also offered her thoughts on the controversy.
‘I understand that there is a real ambient fed up with the wokism that they are trying to make us swallow 24/7, BUT, in the same way that we can criticize a religion but NOT the faithful, I find the sometimes nasty criticisms regarding Eve unfair and counterproductive.
‘Attacking the physical is an attack below the belt, and putting the weight of the total ideological criticism of Wokism on a young woman of 20 is unfair.
‘This young woman is pretty, and feminine “despite” her short hair. I was and still am an admirer of the singular beauty of Audrey Hepburn, Linda Evangelista, or Jean Seberg, all 3 very thin with short hair, and who nevertheless are female icons who have been adored in the whole world.’
Ms Gilles, who was already criticised for her look before being crowned, said that she ‘didn’t want to look like a little girl anymore’ and that she wanted to set an example. ‘But I’m not at all a tomboy. I feel like a woman,’ she added.
Alexia Laroche-Joubert, chief executive of Banijay France which owns the Miss France brand, defended the pageant as a symbol of ‘success’ and a ‘social elevator’ for contestants who have later become ‘businesswomen, doctors or film directors’.
The contest’s criteria have been ‘modernised’, she said, in that there is no longer an age limit for participants, who can now also be married or transgender.
To critics, however, the pageant’s evolution has been insufficient.
Melinda Bizri of the Human Rights League in Dijon, which called for a boycott of the ceremony, called the cosmetic changes ‘feminist-washing.’
‘Women have been abusing themselves all their lives to achieve these phantasmagorical criteria, according to patterns that take a very long time to deconstruct,’ she said.
‘Miss France is still just as sexist in the way it classifies women according to beauty criteria,’ added Violaine de Filippis, spokesperson the for Dare Feminism! association.
