8 Arrested in Beauty Pageant Protest

Eight people protesting the Miss California pageant at the San Diego Civic Theatre were arrested Monday night on misdemeanor charges as they staged their own “Myth Kalifornia Pageant.”

About 7:40 p.m., police arrested three women who shattered a mirror and spilled blood on the concrete of the City Concourse in a symbolic ritual to show the connection between pageants and violence against women. Several more protesters, including one man, were arrested for unlawful assembly and malicious mischief. Among those arrested was protest organizer Ann Simonton.

Although misdemeanor charges carry a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine, it appeared unlikely that the protesters taken into custody would be jailed for long. Police said organizers of the march met with them before the event to learn of San Diego city ordinances and to announce their plans for civil disobedience.

The protesters were arrested for littering, malicious mischief, unlawful assembly and one count of assaulting a police officer. The last charge, which was reduced to a misdemeanor on booking, was the result of flying glass. A shard apparently hit a police officer in the eye when the protesters broke the mirror, police spokesman Lee Stanford said.

About 125 men and women, including 36 women and 5 men who arrived by bus from Santa Cruz on Monday, chanted “Stop the Cattle Call.” They carried signs that read “What If Your Penis Was Your Ticket to Genius” and wore grandiose gowns, tinsel crowns, rubber masks and street clothes. One shivering La Jolla protester wore slabs of meat pinned to her skimpy tank top, and a San Diego woman toted her son on her back.

Forty-one women were competing in San Diego for the title of Miss California, a chance to go to the Miss America pageant, a $20,000 scholarship and $40,000 in prizes. It was the first Miss California pageant to be held in San Diego. For the previous 61 years, the pageant had been held in Santa Cruz. This is the seventh year of the Myth Kalifornia pageant, protest organizers said.

San Diego police said the protesters were assigned a march area, and all the arrests were peaceful.

Rosemary Renauer of Santa Cruz, a member of Media Watch who helped organize the bus trip, said the number of protesters was much smaller than previous years in her hometown, but the turnout was greater than expected.

“We are not here to harass the contestants, we want to show an alternative,” Renauer said. “We need to educate people. We want them to see the connection between making women objects and violence. We hope for a time when women will not have to have a beauty pageant and fit a mold to get the money for a scholarship.”