Watch: John Oliver takes on the Miss America Pageant

We gave this John Oliver segment on the Miss America Pagent a shout-out in the DFCS yesterday, but, goddamn, it deserves its own post. Feminist critiques of beauty pageants are certainly nothing new, of course,  but Oliver’s absolute incredulity that Miss America is still a thing in 2014 is really charming and contagious.

Dispensing with the absurdity of an event in which a “fully clothed man stand[s] in front of a line of women in swimsuits awaiting judgement, he goes on to fact-check Miss America’s assertation that they provide $45 million in scholarship funds for women every year. It turns out that number is wildly misleading–and yet, sadly, the pagent’s claim to be the world’s largest provider of scholarships for women is actually accurate. Oliver helpfully shout-outs a few other women’s scholarship funds that do not require applicants to certify that they have never before been married or pregnant and then waltz around in a bikini in order to compete.

Maya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.