Angela Bustillo, who was crowned Miss Catabria 2007, was debarred from the title after it was learned that she was the mother of a three-year-old boy. The incident has sparked the issue of sexism in the country since, according to Bustillo, no such limitations apply to contestants in the Mr. Cantabria contest.

Bustillo, 22, said she knew the pageant's rules that bar pregnant women, or those who already have children, from taking part in the contest, but that she thought they were obsolete.

"I knew what the rules said but they seemed so absurd that I thought: 'this must be something from the 1970s that hasn't yet been updated to today's times,'" Bustillo told the AP.

Bustillo was elected the most beautiful woman in the northern region of Cantabria earlier this year but her title was withdrawn just 14 days later.

Spain's Socialist government and women's organizations took sides with Bustillo, protesting against a rule which they described as discriminatory and unconstitutional.

"Motherhood does not create any physical, intellectual or work-related limitation for women and any conception of it as a problem is discriminatory," the Women's Institute said in a statement.

However, the organizers of the pageant defended the decision saying the fathers, unlike mothers, "do not undergo substantial physical changes that would impede them from carrying out duties such as travel and taking part in parades that are required of pageant winners."