Last night's episode of I'm A Celebrity left me speechless and enraged as I realised the total double-standards that are in place when it comes to bullying. While people are judged and criticised for being cruel to people deemed unattractive or different, it is apparently totally acceptable - encouraged, even - to pull apart a young woman for nothing other than her inherited good looks and glossy hair.
The tension between Rebecca Adlington and Amy had been simmering throughout the episode, with the Olympic athlete pointedly getting up from her seat and moving away when Amy sat down beside her.
"You pushed me off," she said, when Amy asked her what she'd done wrong. But, as Amy quite rightly pointed out, all she had done was sit herself between Rebecca and Matthew Wright - there was room enough for three people.
Later, things came to a head when the women in the camp rounded on Amy for her beauty pageant experiences.
Rebecca said: "It’s making me very, very insecure that I have to look [a certain way]. For me, I was an athlete. I wasn’t trying to be a model, but pretty much every single week on Twitter I get somebody commenting on the way I look."
Amy attempted to comfort her fellow ITV contestant, confessing that she herself had also been bullied when she was younger:
"People say nasty things and you have to drive your inner confidence."
Which makes sense; people should be able to rise above the critics.
But, unfortunately for Amy, the other females in the camp were quick to turn against her, transforming the scene into something not unlike a witch hunt.
Emmerdale actress Lucy Pargeter rounded on Amy, furiously projecting all of her own insecurities onto the baffled 21-year old.
"Yeah, but if you look like you that’s an awful lot easier than for someone who is self-doubting."
"Tell that to the 15-year-old me covered in acne and braces and glasses. I’ve been there"
But Amy refused to take that criticism, insisting: "Tell that to the 15-year-old me covered in acne and braces and glasses. I’ve been there."
Lucy then launched into a full-scale rant, accusing Amy (and the pageant industry) of making younger women want to have plastic surgery. And she even went so far as to blame her own plastic surgery ventures (such as a boob job and botox) on "beautiful women" like Amy feeling the need to show off their looks.
Which is, coming from a soap star, frankly ridiculous.
Lucy herself projected her own image onto the televisions of thousands in Emmerdale and, unlike Amy (who is "all natural", as she admitted during the argument last night), does so knowing she's had plastic surgery which many of the show's fans will be unable to afford.
Amy sat and listened to everyone's opinions, absorbing each woman's complaints and admitting she was interested to hear their opinions - but they did not afford her the same luxury, cutting her off whenever she tried to defend herself.
Meanwhile Rebecca, who has a body many women would be proud of, walked away to cry in the Bush Telegraph, where she admitted that spending time with Amy had left her self-esteem at an all-time low.
Which explains the tension that has been evident between the pair over the last few days.
Laila Morse went after Rebecca to comfort her, saying: "Listen, you are beautiful."
"She doesn't know what it's like on a day to day basis… she's stick thin, she's got these push-up bras that make her boobs seem massive"
But, undoing all of her kind words, she spitefully added: "You're much better than her, one hundred times."
Reassuring Rebecca is one thing - the Olympian has a fantastic physique and has won two gold medals, so she should be proud of herself and confident. But judging Amy for being pretty? Surely that's just as bad as judging someone for being ugly?
Rebecca tearfully replied: "She doesn't know what it's like on a day to day basis… she's stick thin, she's got these push-up bras that make her boobs seem massive. She's stunning."
"And I know everyone has their insecurities but I feel like she doesn't know what it's like for people like me."
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Everyone has leapt to Rebecca's defence, telling her she's beautiful and should focus on her success as an athlete. Which is fine. But, while we don't agree with the idea of beauty pageants, bullying is bullying. And Amy has - from what we've been shown on the ITV programme - done nothing to warrant the treatment she has received.
She hasn't been spiteful, hasn't been catty and has, on the whole, come across as rather sweet-natured, especially when she sat with Joey Essex and helped teach him to tell the time.
Her only crime is being beautiful
Her only crime is being beautiful. And wearing a bikini - something which fellow ITV star Lucy has done frequently as well since cameras started rolling.
When you compare the situation to the male contestants, all of whom have stripped down to their shorts, all of whom have VERY different bodies and all of whom have managed to do so WITHOUT launching a verbal attack fuelled by jealousy, you begin to see that women are obsessed with judging and comparing each other based solely on their looks.
After all, it would be a very different headline today if Joey Essex had cried in the Bush Telegraph because Kian Egan's rugged good looks had left him feeling insecure, wouldn't it?
Women, you need to WAKE UP!
And that goes for everyone, including Rebecca, who has been painted as a victim. Including Laila, who slammed Amy as worthless based on nothing more than her good looks. And including Lucy, who slammed the beauty industry for promoting "false standards" while similarly making a living from her looks on television.
Women need to stop projecting their own insecurities and body hang-ups onto other people. It demeans them
Women need to stop projecting their own insecurities and body hang-ups onto other people. It demeans them - and it encourages jealousy, cattiness and bullying.
As our mothers always taught us, it's what's on the INSIDE that counts - it's time to work on being attractive there, stop judging books by their covers and getting to know people for the real them, rather than the sack of skin and hair they walk around in each day.
Amy was, unsurprisingly, voted by the public to do tonight's trial on the show. It's amazing how a few crocodile tears can turn someone into a villain, isn't it?
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