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14/11/2018
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Editorial
The Guam Daily Post Nov 14, 2018
Guam's Emma Mae Sheedy is no typical pageant queen.
When she won the Miss Earth Guam title last year, at 17, Sheedy had already made her name as a multisport athlete in a school for military families' students.
More recently, she won silver in the 800-meter and 1,500-meter race in the 2018 Oceania Micronesian Area Regional Championships in June.
Sheedy has shown herself to be a confident, multitalented young woman who wouldn't stay silent after she experienced what she called sexual misconduct by a pageant sponsor at the Miss Earth international pageant in Manila earlier this month – echoing similar claims by England's and Canada's delegates.
Sheedy posted on social media that a pageant sponsor from the Manila Yacht Club had made inappropriate comments and inappropriately touched her.
"I was pulled aside multiple times to be invited to Boracay, private islands and into his house and insisted that I and 'the latino women dance for him,'" Sheedy posted. She said the sponsor "grabbed my bare backside at the National Costume Competition where I was able to push him away, but he consistently told me not to tell anyone about any of the instances."
It's not easy for someone to go public about having been sexually violated. In some cases, victims of sexual assault or misconduct get blamed.
While many have expressed support for Sheedy, a few have asked why she waited until after the pageant was over before she went public about her experience.
There are other risks involved, including one's safety. Sheedy made the right call by speaking up publicly after she had left the international pageant – far from the sponsors and organizers in Manila.
After Sheedy spoke up, the Miss Earth pageant organizer posted to its Facebook page what can be described as a half-hearted response.
It lacked details on what the organization would do about the allegations, what actions will be taken to ensure future delegates have additional safeguards, or whether it was going to help facilitate a complaint to authorities in the Philippines on behalf of the delegates.
And while the organizer's statement acknowledged the complaints from Canada's and England's contestants, Sheedy's allegation wasn't mentioned.
The pageant organizer, Carousel Productions, simply stated that all the delegates were asked "to submit a written statement ... to find out if any of the other delegates could corroborate the complaint of Miss Canada and Miss England so we could use the statements to help the two in case they decided to file a case against the alleged harasser."
Carousel Productions' statement continued, "We were ready to support the two in any action they may have wished to take against the individual who offended them. Unfortunately, instead of working together with us on this matter they opted to go to social media and discredit and disparage the organization." The statement does not indicate who issued the post on behalf of the organization.
Although the organizer's statement ended, in part, that it "has not and will never condone nor tolerate any offensive or indecent acts or behavior to be committed toward or against any of its delegates and staff" – that somehow sounds hollow.
The Guam organizers of Miss Earth have yet to comment.
For Sheedy, there has been no doubt as to why she made her allegations public. It's her hope that change will happen.
"I just feel as if it's time for this to stop. I joined the pageant to make a difference, not to be objectified. I am an open person who will speak my mind and I want others to be comfortable enough to do the same," Sheedy has said. More delegates to the same pageant have spoken up.
We thank Sheedy for her courage and for doing the right thing.
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