60-Year-Old Argentinian to Vie for Miss Universe Title

A 60-year-old Argentine woman will seek to participate in the Miss Universe pageant taking place in Mexico City this September, after winning the Miss Universe Buenos Aires beauty contest this week.

"It was a well-considered decision but thanks to the director of Miss Universe Buenos Aires, I decided to enter at 60 years old," Alejandra Rodríguez said.

To compete in the international Miss Universe, Rodríguez must be elected among the winners from other provinces at the Miss Universe Argentina national pageant on May 25 in Buenos Aires.

A lawyer and journalist, the now model lives and works in La Plata, Buenos Aires province. She is a newcomer to the regional contest which eliminated the maximum age limit for the first time this year.

"I had never entered before. Now this opportunity came up and I decided to do it because it seemed like a challenge, a very interesting proposal and well, I dared to go for it and achieved the win," she said.

Rodríguez opined that the contest currently has "another paradigm" of beauty. "Beauty is not just physical, but has to do with an attitude towards life that goes beyond aesthetics, which is why I think the pageant is breaking those stereotypes, and that's probably what's making it so visible," she stated.

In Argentina, beauty pageants have faced public criticism in recent years. In 2023, the 80-year-old "Harvest Queen" contest in Mendoza province had to be legally intervened as one department refused to participate, considering it "anachronistic, retrograde and discriminatory."

The Miss Universe pageant, long criticized for promoting outdated, stereotyped ideas of femininity, has been held since 1952. Nicaraguan Sheynnis Palacios won the last edition, the first winner from Central America, sparking Nicaragua's largest mobilizations since 2018's anti-government protests.