A couple of weeks ago, the Miss America Organization announced that for the first time in history, the swimsuit competition will not be a part of the pageant. The organization, finally under mostly female leadership, announced this in an effort to redefine its role in what they call a new era of female empowerment, and I know I speak on behalf of most women—even women who have won the competition—when I say it's about time.

But amidst all this talk about progress and the steps in the right direction that the Miss America Organization is taking, let's not forget to talk about the corrupt nature of the organization itself, with or without bikinis.

Supporters of Miss America often claim that it is more than a beauty pageant and is really a scholarship competition. What's more? The Miss America Organization itself states that it is "the world's largest provider of scholarships for women."

Let's break that down.

To start, it's important to note that the organization does not provide scholarships for all women. It (allegedly) provides scholarships to the select women that compete in its pageants. And what exactly are the requirements to compete in the pageant?

Not being married and having never been married as well as not being pregnant and having never been pregnant are among the top ones. Beyond that, there is the obvious fact that getting to compete in a nationwide beauty pageant is not something accessible to the everyday woman or scholar. We're talking about a ridiculously narrow niche here.

But once we get past all of that to the few women who qualify for the scholarships, it only gets worse. The organization claims that it provides 45 million dollars annually in scholarships for its contestants. However, in 2012, the organization spent less than 500,000 dollars in cash scholarships.

What happened to the rest of that money they claim to provide?

Here's the thing: as long as they stick to that word "provide," they're in the clear. Because, yes, the Miss America Organization is technically "providing" 45 million dollars a year in scholarships.

A handful of schools offer scholarships directly to pageant contestants. Miss America adds up the total amount in scholarships that are offered to contestants—even though, obviously, each contestant can only attend one school and take one scholarship. But if four schools offer scholarships of 100,000 dollars each to one contestant, in the eyes of the Miss America Organization, this means that it's providing 400,000 dollars in scholarships to that one contestant. Starting to see the problem here?

Miss America, "provided" does not mean the same thing as "awarded."

But here's where it gets even more troubling: despite all of this, their claims are true—Miss America is the world's largest provider of scholarships for women. That doesn't mean that Miss America, a pageant that up until two weeks ago thought that a swimsuit segment and a 30-second window to speak qualified as a scholarship competition, is the leading example in how we should support female scholars. It means that this country—and this world—is so careless about supporting female scholars that this is what we're allowing as our gold standard.

We have to do better. For ourselves and for the future generations of women that can accomplish so much if they're only given the right resources. They deserve so much more than to think that this is what progress looks like. Let's give them that chance.

If you're interested, more information about legitimate scholarship providers for women and how to donate can be found here. The future is female, y'all. Let's try to get on the right side of history sooner rather than later.