The Heartwarming Story of the Aerospace Engineer Student Who Became Miss England After Being Teased for Her Hair
Jessica Gagen is an aerospace engineering student who beat 29 other hopefuls to become the latest Miss England. She won the coveted crown after being the target of bullying in middle school because of the color of her hair, which makes her victory all the more special, since she is the first redhead to be crowned Miss England.
Her story is a heartwarming tale of overcoming adversity and proving people wrong, who have put you down in the past. She aims to inspire young girls, who feel like outcasts, to rise above adversity, as well as encourage them to find a place for themselves in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, particularly engineering.
Jessica started being teased once middle school started due to the color of her hair.
Jessica recalls having a good time during her first years at school, but things took a turn for the worse once middle school started. She faced bullying, mostly related to her hair color. This made Jessica isolate herself to the point that she sometimes had her lunch in the bathroom, away from everybody. “The way I dealt with it was by bottling everything up,” Jessica continues, “I tried my best not to react because I was mature enough to know that a lot of the kids weren’t being malicious.”
However, all the bullying took its toll. She started questioning why she was different from her peers, which was aggravated by the fact that she couldn’t relate to any role models with similar appearances.
She found confidence and she became unstoppable—as both a student and a model.
However, as the years went by, Jessica started succeeding at school, which made her more confident in herself. She found a group of friends and her grades improved. She also found more people to look up to that also looked like her. This is the case of Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud. “She’s successful, she’s got ginger hair, and she’s from the North West, so she was like me.” Soon after finishing school, her modeling career took off.
She says that there were times when she considered dying her hair to fit in, but she ended up not doing it. “I don’t have a problem with it myself. It’s just other people. My hair’s my identity. I never want to change it,” she elaborates, “I decided I’d been given this set of genes because the universe thought I was strong enough to deal with it.”
Jessica has also offered advice to people going through something similar: “When I was feeling down, I used to follow accounts of girls who had red hair, and suddenly my page was filled with people who looked like me. Then I didn’t feel as bad about my hair color anymore.”
Becoming the first redhead to win Miss England
After school, she focused on her modelling career, eventually going on to win Miss England 2022, after coming in second place the previous year. Her victory was all the more significant because she was also the very first redhead to win the Miss England crown.
At first, she wanted to distance herself from the bullying that had taken place when she was younger. In her first attempt at the Miss England crown, Jessica did not mention her hair color at all. According to her, she wanted to leave the negativity in the past. Things changed when she noticed a lack of ginger-haired winners in the history of Miss England. In fact, she was initially apprehensive of the fact that her life story had become public knowledge. As she stated in an Instagram post, it was tough seeing her struggle all over the news, but she also acknowledged that her story could empower others.
Jessica is now a positive influence for bullying victims as well as girls who are interested in STEM subjects.
Despite all of her initial apprehensions, Jessica embraced her story, and made bringing awareness to her struggle with bullying one of the central elements of her race for the Miss England crown. She realized that there are kids today going through the same struggles that she once did, and she’s making it her mission to show them that there is hope: “’I thought if I could win this, I could empower kids who are being teased for the way that they look and the color of their hair,” she stated.
However, that is not the only cause that Jessica is representing. She originally campaigned for the Miss England title to encourage girls to get into STEM fields. Jessica, currently in the process of getting her master’s degree in aerospace engineering, has talked about engineering fields being predominantly catered to men: “(...) most girls don’t know what being an engineer involves, which I personally think stems all the way back to our younger years. Our school systems don’t market it to girls very well and toys like helicopters, racing cars, and building structures are generally marketed to boys, which is exactly the reason that it’s important to me to showcase both sides of my life—the fashion modeling AND the engineering.”
In the end, Jessica is all about using her platform to become a positive and relatable role model that encourages younger girls, redhead or otherwise, to rise above adversity and find their own place in the world. Reflecting on her own story, she reminds the world: “One bad chapter doesn’t have to last the rest of the book. Keep on reading.”
Do you have a physical trait that wasn’t shared by your peers? How does it make you feel unique?