That, as most everyone knows by now, could change during the telecast Saturday night. Viewers will be able to call in and decide the fate of the swimsuit segment, for this year and future ones, before it takes place.

The swimsuit referendum demonstrates a willingness by pageant officials to move Miss America further away from the simple, quaint beauty contest it has often been perceived to be.

But what are they moving it toward?

"I'm not sure," said Leonard C. Horn, the president of the Miss America Organization, as he sat in a trailer beside the pageant stage earlier this week. Nor is he sure, he said, "how far to go before you throw out the baby with the bath water."

As it celebrates its 75th anniversary, the Miss America pageant seems to find itself in the grip of a potent identity crisis that gives rise to a host of contradictions small, large and positively surreal. Its very confusion, however, may put it closer in step with the times than it has ever been.

In a country in conflict over what roles and rights women should have, pageant officials and contestants are merely grappling with the same uncertainty. Consider the mutual embrace this year between the pageant, a lighting rod for complaints from feminists, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the First Lady, a lightning rod for complaints about feminists.