Miss Utah's brain-fart

Hard as it is to give impromptu responses to tough social questions at beauty pageants, this particular question would understandably sound like the Sphinx's riddle to Ms. Utah.

In the 2013 Miss U.S.A. contest, Ms Utah wasn't able to solve the puzzle of why women get paid less than men for the same job, though statistically, women are the primary breadwinners in 40% of all American families today.

One reasonable answer: because those primary breadwinners are under-educated, mostly poor (white, black and Hispanic) single mothers from broken homes, who work minimum wage jobs. They are "invisible," i.e. they don't count as "people."

How would folks like Ms. Utah have the key to such national secrets?

So, please, we shouldn't be laughing at Ms. Utah; she's a contestant for a beauty pageant and can't be blamed for the silly quest to find a perfect amalgamation of beauty, brains and social conscience on the part of the pageant organizers. 

A better question would have been: Why do Black women have blonde hair? What does THAT tell about our society?

The beauty pageant contestants aren't quite in the league of Hollywood actresses, like Anne Hathaway and Natalie Portman, who are very educated and highly informed and interested in the world around them.

Sad, that Ms. Utah won't win the crown simply because she said, "Make, education, better."

P.s. In real, psychological terms, what Miss Utah experienced was a "blank." Under a pressure to say the right thing, contestants in highly competitive contexts like the Miss U.S.A. Beauty Pageant, draw a blank in their brains, and what's released as a result is a "brain fart."

It happens to drones in the national Spelling Bee contest as well.