Dur­ing the 48th Miss Uni­verse pageant held in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the fi­nal ques­tion was "If Miss Uni­verse were to be­come preg­nant dur­ing her reign, should she be al­lowed to con­tin­ue as Miss Uni­verse?”

Botswana's Mpule Kwe­lagobe an­swered: "Per­son­al­ly, I think Miss Uni­verse is a sym­bol of a woman as well as she's cel­e­brat­ing her fem­i­nin­i­ty, and I be­lieve that if she should fall preg­nant it will not in any way in­ter­rupt her du­ties. I be­lieve as a woman she should cel­e­brate her fem­i­nin­i­ty."

The then 19-year-old tri­umphed over Miri­am Quiambao of the Philip­pines (first run­ner-up) and Di­ana Nogueira of Spain (sec­ond run­ner-up) to win the ti­tle of Miss Uni­verse 1999, a his­toric first time for her coun­try.

Fast for­ward to to­day, over 20 years lat­er, the Miss Uni­verse Or­ga­ni­za­tion (MUO) has an­nounced its de­ci­sion to al­low "women who are or have been mar­ried, as well as women who are preg­nant or have chil­dren" to com­pete start­ing next year (Miss Uni­verse 2023).

With the lat­est change in their rules, it is clear the or­ga­ni­za­tion head­ed by Paula Shugart (Pres­i­dent) and Amy Em­merich (CEO) con­tin­ues to "evolve with the chang­ing of times to best rep­re­sent and sup­port women glob­al­ly."

"Women should have agency over their lives, and that a hu­man's per­son­al de­ci­sions should not be a bar­ri­er to their suc­cess."

Source: www.pageant­cir­cle.com