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| Miss America | Miss Afghanistan |
|---|---|
| On the left is Katie Harmon, Miss America, wearing the swimsuit she chose for the competition. | On the right is a typical Afghan girl, wearing the heavy smothering burqua as required by the oppressive Taliban regime. |
| Miss America is a junior at Portland State University, hoping to eventually get a Master's degree in Bioethics. | Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from receiving any education at all, and cannot read or write. |
| Miss America has worked as a lab assistant at both the Oregon Health Sciences University and the University of Puget Sound. | Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from working. |
| Miss America's father is an engineer. Her mother is a teacher. | Miss Afghanistan's father was shot by a gang of Taliban militants. Her mother begs for bread scraps since she cannot work or remarry. |
| Miss America wowed the judges by singing a Puccini aria, "O Mio Babbino Caro". | Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from singing or even listening to music of any kind. |
| Miss America will be traveling the nation nonstop during her reign. | Miss Afghanistan cannot leave her house without a male family member, cannot drive, and cannot be out after dark. |
| Miss America is an advocate for breast cancer research. | Miss Afghanistan cannot be treated by a male doctor, and for all practical purposes has no access to medical treatment of any kind. |
| Miss America can date, marry, or divorce anyone she chooses. | Miss Afghanistan will be stoned to death if caught in the company of a male outside of her family. She is likely to be sold into an arranged marriage to a man who already has two wives. |
| Miss America wears sunscreen on the beach to keep from burning. | Miss Afghanistan cannot live in a house with windows unless they are painted black. Since she must wear a burqua outside, her pale translucent skin has not seen a ray of sunlight in years. |
| Miss America could have been disqualified if her swimsuit did not meet pageant standards. | Miss Afghanistan can be flogged if the holes in the mesh covering her face are too large. |
| Miss America will decide how many children, if any, she wants to have. | Miss Afghanistan will be pregnant 3-4 times more often than Miss America. Unfortunately, her babies are 25 times more likely to die in the first year. One out of four will not see their 5th birthday. |
| Miss America is majoring in speech communications at PSU. | Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from speaking in public. |
| Miss America is 21. Since the US life expectancy for women is 80, she's still a very young woman. | Miss Afghanistan is also 21. But since the life expectancy for an Afghan woman is 43, next year she will be over-the-hill". (Besides having a shockingly short life expectancy overall, Afghanistan is one of the only countries in the world in which women have a shorter life expectancy than men) |
| Miss America is a beautiful, intelligent woman and everyone knows it. | Miss Afghanistan could be a beautiful, intelligent woman, but nobody will ever know it. |
| God Bless Miss America. | God Help Miss Afghanistan. |
