COMBAT BARBIE: Why I support the return of the Miss England bikini parade I fought to ban as the competition considers bringing back the controversial round:
Katrina Hodge is quite a woman. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who's been trained to kill a man with their bare hands, but also walk through a scene in a skimpy bikini without fear. As a beauty queen and a soldier, she shares a very practical pro tip - on the problem of badly behaved bikini bottoms, not a fighting technique.
"Hair spray," she said. "That's the secret." It is best to spray on the buttocks and on the bikini panties, then no wrinkles and lifts will form there. Behind the scenes of every beauty pageant, all the girls help each other spray. “The teamwork going on here is amazing. "Who knew?
Katrina is a former Miss England who interrupted her glittering career in the military to compete in a beauty pageant in 2008. A former corporal in the Royal Anglian Regiment, she was awarded a decoration for bravery after taking two guns from an insurgent in Iraq and slapping him in the face as he was about to launch an attack. His quick response saved the lives of five colleagues.
The jump from the frontline to Miss World (she voted in South Africa 2009) clearly made headlines around the world, earning her the nickname "Combat Barbie" and turning her into a role model for recruiting, much to her delight military personnel, etc. women's movement. Katrina now works in the financial services sector and lives in Brighton with her husband and daughters aged 11 and 8.
She tells me that she had firmly planned to remain in the military throughout her career and that, now 36, she would have retired if everything had worked out. They have not.
"I had a hell of a time coming back [to Miss World]. Guys, colleagues, had pictures of me behind their bed. I was a laughingstock,” she reveals. While the army backed her beauty queen ambitions, she says: "I feel like they took advantage of me. They were happy I was their muse, but when it all became a problem I was on my own.”
We'll get back to his military career, but for now, suffice it to say, it's been blown to pieces. Looking back, does she think a military career is compatible with a career as a beauty queen? "No," she said bluntly. "At least it wasn't for me.
There are many topics that Katrina can talk about due to her unusual career. Today we deal with sexism, misogyny, bullying, societal expectations and female body awareness.
But let's start with the tiny but extremely problematic bikinis. Last week she was back in the headlines and embroiled in a debate over whether to reintroduce the controversial swimsuit variant at this year's Miss England pageant.
Katrina - who is among the latest group of competitors forced to wear it - can be blamed for her downfall.
She had spoken out against a compulsory round of swimsuits, arguing it was humiliating for women and discouraged 'serious' women - 'lawyers, teachers, doctors, soldiers' - from attending celebrations self-confidence, autonomy and community spirit of women.
It is true that young women in these professions are now flocking to beauty pageants. Miss England 2019 was NHS doctor Dr. Bhasha Mukherjee. Last year's winner was aerospace engineering student Jessica Gagen, who appears to be on her way to becoming an astronaut.
Yet far from praising herself for her service to the sister community, Katrina is at odds with her once militant stance. She's now, confusingly, endorsing the bikini — or at least a woman's decision to wear one in a beauty pageant — in what seems like an about-face. "At the time, I joined the Awakened Brigade because I thought that was the feminist thing," she said. “It has been reported that I now regret it. That is not completly correct. I think it was the right decision back then. There were elements that went downhill.”
“I remember one Miss England bikini launch event where the finalists paraded to the show on the King's Road in Chelsea. That wasn't going to happen now, and it was humiliating. The police stopped the traffic and there were men in cars screaming.” That was not the purpose of the competitions. It had nothing to do with our charity work or giving us a platform. It was all about showing meat.
But what has changed 14 years later? 'All. We live in a different culture where Love Islanders make millionaires by walking around in bikinis — and nobody judges them for it. But women who compete are still labeled bad feminists. And I feel like the question has gotten really confusing.
"I don't think the swimsuits are the problem, it's more the way they are presented, when the girls are taken out of the frame of the festival and out of context." The world of contests has also changed. It is no longer run by men for men. At most festivals, 80% of the audience is now made up of women. They are women who cheer up other women and celebrate all body shapes and sizes.
"The key is choice, I think." I still don't think the swimsuit tour should be something a woman MUST attend, but I also feel like it can be empowering. It was definitely for me.
Katrina's turnaround is also partly due to her personal experience. Although she has always been a part of pageants (she now runs one herself), she hadn't competed in 12 years before getting back on the track last year. It was a revelation as she chose to enter a contest that also involved swimsuits.
And the surprising twist? Her body was much larger than when she was Miss England, so even she expected to hate the experience. "I weighed seven kilos more," she says. “And I had no confidence in my body. I'm not sure I ever was - I always had to work up the courage to even walk around the pool on vacation, no matter how tall I was.
“But when I returned to competition, I had a completely different body. I had two children. I was wearing size 16/18 clothes and not the size 6 I was wearing at the time. Miss England Days. I think a lot of women get disoriented when they become mothers, and to a certain extent I felt the same way. I ate like I did in the army days, but didn't do the three workouts a day.
She says her weight gain caused her a lot of heartache — especially when she or others compared her figure to the figure that earned her the title of Miss England.
"It was humiliating. I remember going to a friend's house with my shaggy hair and little makeup and she had a visitor. They introduced me and said, 'This is the woman we told you about, Miss England.' I felt bad at those moments. You can't help but feel like you're letting yourself go. I didn't want to be in photos with my daughters because I was ashamed of my looks. And yet she still looked great - just bigger.
She says it was extremely scary to walk the runway again in one black piece - until she noticed the cheers of support from the crowd.
"Honestly, I've never felt so supported and it's done wonders for my confidence." In fact, I would say I felt more confident and confident than I ever felt during my Miss England days."
Were you still convicted?
"Yes, the pageant world is all about being judged - but not just on body shape these days." You are judged on your body awareness and attitude.
“No one cares if you have tremors or cellulite because we all have that.” “This realization was a real game-changer for me.” Katrina is now taller than she was in her 20s , a relatively slim waist in size 36. She lost 7 again, partly due to stress — "my mother died last year and a lot of that was" — but also due to health issues .
“My knees were damaged from years in the military and the extra weight was not good for them. This size makes me feel healthier, but at the same time I definitely felt more confident doing this swimsuit trick as a woman in a size 16/18 than in a size 6. I can only conclude that when it comes to trust, size doesn't really matter . It's about what's going on in your head.
Where is she now? "I still have congestion - now the skin is loose and doesn't look tight enough, but unfortunately I think that's normal." I think most women have complexes. It doesn't matter if you are a beauty queen or not.
"The key to overcoming these issues is addressing the relationship you have with your body, rather than seeing it as something designed to meet certain standards or please men."
Bikini arguments aside, it's interesting that Katrina talks about the teamwork and togetherness in the pageant world. It provides structure and support that the military once offered.
Originally, she joined the military because of a challenge. "People didn't think someone as girly as me would be accepted," she says. She was deployed to Iraq two days after her 18th birthday and loved her new world.
She says she truly believed being a beauty queen would only enrich her career in the military.
"I had to get permission, which was granted."
Maybe she was naive to think that after her pin-up career she would be back in the limelight, but seeing her own bikini picture hanging on the walls at the fair was still a shock. .
"I don't think I was prepared for the abuse I suffered. A lot of it was online — people called me a bitch whore bitch just because they saw pictures of me in a bathing suit — but there were also people in the military who commented.
She says there were sexually aggressive comments that went beyond a hoax. "Once cans of Coke were thrown at me, but complaining about it made me feel like a diva. The women were actually more snappy than the men.”
