A New York mother has filed a complaint against Miss America and Miss World over their requirements that a woman must be unmarried and have no children to compete. In the first complaint sent to the City of New York Commission of Human Rights and obtained by PEOPLE, Danielle Hazel — who had a son at the age of 19 — claimed that the entry requirement for the Miss World America pageant is “discriminatory."
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00I'm 19 years old, I had my son Sion, and it was one of the greatest gifts of my entire
00:16life.
00:17I did not want or plan to give up on my dreams of being a part of a pageant and representing
00:25my country or my aspirations after I became a mother, but I actually felt more motivated
00:32because of having my son, to make him proud and to be able to represent other mothers.
00:55We believe that these eligibility requirements discriminate against women who are parents
01:07in violation of the law in New York, and in particular in violation of the New York City
01:12Ordinance which prohibits sex discrimination.
01:15My hopes is that they're able to see that the rules do need to be changed because they're
01:22not fair and they are outdated, so I hope that does get resolved, and I hope there is
01:28a resolution where mothers and people who are married are allowed to enter the pageant.