We used to not care that much about beauty pageants, even though the prospect of tarted-up catalog models playing the ukulele or twirling fiery batons should have us gagging. But in recent years, we've been sucked in by the inane, and sometimes insulting answers these buxom beauties have been giving during the interview segment.

There was Miss California Carrie Prejean's infamous explanation that marriage " should be between a man and a woman." Then there was Miss South Carolina's disastrous response to why Americans can't locate the U.S. on a map. ("Our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries.")

Now we can add to that pantheon of stupidity 21-year-old Miss Utah Marissa Powell, who stumbled Sunday night as she tried to explain how to improve the disparity between women and men's salaries, during the Q&A portion of the Miss USA pageant.

NeNe Leakes: "A recent report shows that in 40 percent of American families with children, women are the primary earners, yet they continue to earn less than men. What does this say about society?"

Marissa Powell: "I think we can relate this back to education, and how we are … continuing to try to strive to [super-long pause] figure out how to create jobs right now. That is the biggest problem. And I think, especially the men are … um … seen as the leaders of this, and so we need to try to figure out how to create educate better so we can solve this problem. Thank you."

Giuliana Rancic's expression kind of says it all, doesn't it?