University of British Columbia Press Queen of the Maple Leaf: Beauty Contests and Settler Femininity (Sexuality Studies)

As modern versions of the settler nation took root in twentieth-century Canada, beauty emerged as a business. Queen of the Maple Leaf deftly uncovers the codes of femininity, class, sexuality, and race that beauty pageants exemplified, whether they took place on local or national stages. A union-organized pageant such as Queen of the Dressmakers, for example, might uplift working-class women, but immigrant women need not apply. Patrizia Gentile demonstrates how beauty contests connected female bodies to white, wholesome, respectable, middle-class femininity, locating their longevity squarely within their capacity to reassert the white heteropatriarchy at the heart of settler societies. Review Queen of the Maple Leaf investigates how power reproduces itself within the seemingly mundane, ordinary, or even 'fluffy' cultural practices. The beauty pageant can no longer be considered harmless fun. --Suzanne Lenon, University of Lethbridge " Queen of the Maple Leaf investigates how power reproduces itself within the seemingly mundane, ordinary, or even 'fluffy' cultural practices. The beauty pageant can no longer be considered harmless fun."--Suzanne Lenon, University of Lethbridge "In this analytically nimble and compellingly argued book, Patrizia Gentile makes a powerful argument for understanding beauty contests as reflective of and contributing to the shaping of white settler society. This is a timely and exciting contribution to Canadian history and cultural studies."--Jane Nicholas, author of The Modern Girl: Feminine Modernities, the Body, and Commodities in the 1920s "Patrizia Gentile has written the most comprehensive critical study of Canadian beauty contests that exists. The material on workplace beauty contests and the involvement of unions is especially interesting and original."--Maxine Craig, author of Ain't I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race In this analytically nimble and compellingly argued book, Patrizia Gentile makes a powerful argument for understanding beauty contests as reflective of and contributing to the shaping of white settler society. This is a timely and exciting contribution to Canadian history and cultural studies .--Jane Nicholas, author of The Modern Girl: Feminine Modernities, the Body, and Commodities in the 1920s Patrizia Gentile has written the most comprehensive critical study of Canadian beauty contests that exists. The material on workplace beauty contests and the involvement of unions is especially interesting and original.--Maxine Craig, author of Ain't I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race About the Author Patrizia Gentile is an associate professor in the Human Rights and Social Justice program and the Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies at Carleton University. She is co-author with Gary Kinsman of The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation; co-editor with Jane Nicholas of Contesting Bodies and Nation in Canadian History; and co-editor with Gary Kinsman and L. Pauline Rankin of We Still Demand! Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles.