When Manika Vishwakarma stepped into the spotlight recently, cameras flashed and a familiar moment awaited her: the dreaded final question round. Many viewers did a double-take because the very same question had been asked decades earlier, back in 1994, to India’s very own . Her answer was memorable, poised and clever, and the question’s re-appearance raises something important: why pageants keep returning to this theme, and what it says about today’s contestants.

For Sushmita Sen, that answer helped seal her Miss Universe title. Still, for Manika Vishwakarma, it offered something more: a chance to revisit and redefine the narrative for a new generation.

Miss Universe 2025: The repeating question and its layers

In the final round of Miss Universe 1994, Sushmita Sen was asked, "What for you is the essence of being a woman?" She didn’t know the meaning of the word “essence”, yet she answered beautifully. She said: “Being a woman is a gift from God, which we should appreciate. A child is born to a mother, who is a woman. And she teaches a man how to care, share, and love. That is the essence of being a woman.”

On November 16, during a ‘chain reaction question session’, Manika was asked by the interviewer: “In the 1994 Miss Universe finale, Miss Sushmita Sen from India was asked, 'What for you is the essence of being a woman?' That is my question for you.”

Manika Vishwakarma's reply

Manika said, "When an 18-year-old girl in the Philippines answered this question in 1994, stating, 'What is the essence of being a woman?' She stated it very simply: Being a woman is about the ability to nurture a life, to nurture every single thing around you."

She added, “I would just elaborate on it. As women, we are often seen by society in certain roles. However, I want women to see themselves as a person, as a human. Yes, we have the ability to nurture. Yes, we have the ability to create life, and not just create life, but actually beautify every single thing around us. That is the essence of being a woman: the ability to not just beautify but embrace and amplify the beauty of every single thing around us. Being a woman is being infinite, and that is the essence of being a woman.”

What’s changed, and what hasn’t

Today, contestants like Manika carry not just glamour, but the weight of representation, social advocacy and global platforms. When faced with the same question, their answers weave in elements of mental health, diversity, climate action and digital identity, topics that barely made a whisper in the 1990s.

Yet the underlying structure remains: women are asked to distil their journeys into one statement. In effect, these questions reflect a moment of transition, a bridge between what women were expected to be, and what they’re choosing to become.

Why the question matters outside pageants

Beyond the glitz, this question reveals how society expects women to look backwards and forward at once, to own their past, assess their present and map their future. It shapes how young women see themselves, how audiences consume pageants, and how culture defines ambition and self-value.

When we analyse the answer more than the gown, we see that pageants are becoming a mirror, not just of beauty, but of changing narratives around gender, identity and influence.

Though the exact wording varies, the question typically runs along the lines of: For Sushmita in 1994, the answer was crisp and culturally resonant. Decades later, Vishwakarma faced it again, proving that some classic questions aren’t just pageant staples, they’re deliberate reflections of society’s evolution.

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