The Miss America beauty pageant is dropping the swimsuit competition, saying it will no longer judge contestants on their appearance but on "what makes you you".

The pageant began nearly 100 years ago as a bathing beauty contest to keep tourists coming to the seaside resort town of Atlantic City, New Jersey, after Labor Day. But in recent decades, women's groups and others have complained that making contestants parade across the stage in bathing suits and high heels is outdated, sexist and more than a little silly.

The announcement on Tuesday came after a shake-up at the Miss America Organisation that resulted in the top three leadership positions being held by women. The overhaul was triggered by an email scandal last December in which Miss America officials denigrated winners' intelligence, appearance and sex lives.

"We're not going to judge you on your appearance because we are interested in what makes you you," Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America who became head of the organisation's board of trustees in the wake of the scandal, said in making the announcement on ABC's Good Morning America.

Carlson, whose sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes led to his departure, said the board had heard from potential contestants who lamented, "We don't want to be out there in high heels and swimsuits".