GMB: Journalist and Miss England director debate whether to bring back the bikini round

Good Morning Britain hosted a heated debate today over whether Miss England should bring back her controversial bikini round.

The beauty pageant is attempting to reintroduce the bikini parade to the podium for the first time since 2002 — despite other competitions continuing to scrap such rounds.

To discuss the matter, Good Morning Britain hosts Dan Shepphard and Susanna Reid welcomed election director Angie Beasley and journalist Flora Gill.

While she was the one who decided to scrap the bikini parade when she was put in charge of the contest in 2002, Angie advocated the comeback of the round, while Flora said the move was “backwards” and said the election director was ” insincere’ to claim that the bikinis would make women stronger.

While watching at home, some agreed with Flora that the bikini round was misogynistic and should not be returned to the main round of the competition.

Angie, who took over the contest in 2002, explained that the replaced bikini round was never completed and was taken out of the Miss England pageant.

“We replaced bikinis with sportswear to show off the other parts of the competition,” she said, adding that the bikini round only made up a tenth of the game.

“We don’t parade the girls on stage, we haven’t paraded them since 2009, we brought it back because it was debated and the girls wanted it,” she added.

“They wanted us to record the swimwear round. It’s important to give the girls a choice and that’s what Miss England is all about.

“It’s about empowering women and giving them a choice,” she added.

“If you want to enter a competition like this, which hundreds of thousands of women in this country are doing, they should be able to choose,” she said.

Susanna asked if Angie would make the bikini round an option for contestants to take part in, to which the pageant director replied that this was already how the Miss England contest ran its Beach Beauty photoshoot.

“We have a Beach Beauty round, which is run as a photo shoot, and if you want to take part in that round, you can do so by submitting your own photo of yourself in swimwear, then you can decide in the beach shoot.

“80 percent of the girls send in the photo and they feel good about themselves in a bikini, it’s up to them,” she added.

She further said that Bhasha Mukherjee won Miss England in 2019 without taking part in the Beach Beauty photo shoot, suggesting that posing in bikini was not necessary to win.

“These are really educated girls, they have a mind of their own, they can decide if they want to compete in Miss England and the Beach Beauty round, so we’re putting it up to them to decide if we’re including it this year, there are all those different rounds,” she said.

However, journalist Flora said she found the reintroduction of the bikini round “backward”.

“I think beauty pageants have taken a lot of steps to make themselves more progressive and more than just physical beauty,” she said.

“It feels like a step backwards to bring back the idea that an important part of beauty was judged by how you look in a bikini.

“It’s like we used to have models or women in bikinis holding up signs to mark different rounds on game shows,” she added.

“Everyone would always say, ‘It’s up to these women, it’s their choice,’ but it’s also about the image you project of women and what you say matters,” she told Angie.

“It’s not like we’re talking about banning this round that already exists, it’s bringing it back,” she added.

Susannah argued that some women want to wear a bikini because they feel good about themselves, but Flora countered that she doesn’t want to feel judged if she wears her own bikini on the beach.

Angie, who competed in Miss England in the 1980s, countered that she was initially terrified of competing in the bikini round of the pageant, but that it eventually gave her confidence.

Flora wondered if the decision is really up to women, or if they feel pressured to participate in bikini rounds.

“I just think it’s all disingenuous,” she said.

“Don’t pretend you’re doing it for feminist reasons, you’re doing it because you think you’ll get more attention if they’re in their bikinis, and you will,” she shrugged.

Viewers at home sided with Flora, calling the bikini round “dangerous” and “misogynistic.”

“Don’t say you won’t and then bring it back. That’s going backwards,” said one.

Don’t pretend you’re doing it for women’s emancipation. It’s only seen as empowering if they’re overweight,” one said.

“Women’s elections are so misogynistic and encourage men to mistreat their partners!!

‘Sexualizing girls as objects of beauty. Not good,” wrote another.

Inspiring women? Real? ,” said one, “that’s judging people by their bodies, not empowering them,” said another.

“We give girls the choice…” my a***,” one wrote.