I think the election of George Mason University student Reann Ballslee as Ms. Mason 2009 is fantastic. I found the dissenting opinions in today’s Post article about GMU’s homecoming revealing:

Beyond the joyful tears and tiara, Allen’s election exposed conflicting cultural currents at the sprawling campus in Fairfax County. Many see it as an expression of inclusiveness at a place where about one-third of the 30,000 students are minority. But others say it is an embarrassment at an inopportune time when Mason is trying to revamp its image from commuter school to distinguished institution of higher learning.

Officially, the university is “very comfortable with it. We’re fine,” spokesman Daniel Walsch said. The school does not require participants in the Mr. and Ms. Mason pageant to compete along precise gender lines, he said.

Toward the end of the article they quoted a student who was unhappy about the selection:

But electing a dude as homecoming queen is not the way to bolster pride, sophomore Grant Bollinger said. Mason was recently named the No. 1 national university to watch by U.S. News & World Report, he said — it should act like it.

“It’s really annoying,” said Bollinger, who works as an ambassador for the admissions office. “The game was on TV. Everyone was there. All eyes were on us. And we do something like this? It’s just stupid.”

Why is it stupid? Another air-headed blonde homecoming queen would be dignified and smart?

And the squawking about how this article displaced what could have been a serious piece about academics at GMU? Academics didn’t lose out on the world stage because the guy won. I can’t prove there wasn’t going to be a cool article about econ 101 at Mason in the paper that was killed so the media could talk about homecoming, but it seems like a safe bet to me that there’s no equilibrium being upset here.

There are 175 comments on that article (so far) on WashingtonPost.com but the level of discourse is pretty low, so I lost interest after the first couple of pages. I’m always fascinated when so-called chivalrous men roll out the “but think of the women!” argument to protest. Yes, we’re all delicate flowers who’s very self-esteem rests on competing against one another to see who looks best in a bathing suit.

Honestly, if you were in a beauty contest and you lost to a guy, wouldn’t that be less ego-bruising than losing to another woman, if you really felt that competitive with other women?

I’ll read more of the comments at washingtonpost.com later. For now I need a nap.