Is she really worth more though?

Source: Richard Gillin, Flickr.

Olympic gold medalist Rebecca Adlington was left in tears a few days ago after a heated discussion about body image with fellow I'm a Celebrity! contestant (and Great Britain's Miss Universe) Amy Willerton. 

After watching the swimmer being comforted by Eastenders' Leila Morse, who told her that she was 'worth more' than Amy due to being an athlete and the other girl 'only' being a model, and also seeing Lucy Pargeter tell Amy she was 'self-perpetuating the industry', a myriad of different questions sprang into my mind. 

Why does somebody winning a gold medal mean that they are 'worth more' than somebody who has been crowned Miss Universe? Why is it unacceptable to target a person for looking 'ugly', but acceptable to target them if they are 'pretty'? Surely, if a person has got to the very top of their chosen field (E.g, Winning a gold medal, being given the highest title you can be given in a beauty contest), then they are worth just as much as each other? 

Actually, come to think of it, why on earth are we judging people solely based on what they've achieved, rather than their actual personality? I'm pretty sure that Amy hates being seen as just a 'piece of meat' as Lucy put it, just in the same way that Rebecca hates being seen as just an 'athlete'. When you judge a person, you look at who they are themselves, what their morals are, how they are on a one-to-one basis, whether or not they are a decent person. Not on whether they're pretty, whether they've got a gold medal or if they're a miracle worker. 


It was awful to see Becky get upset about her looks, especially considering that what she does hasn't required her to be people's warped perception of 'beautiful', but I could not tolerate Lucy taking the swimmer's side and accusing Amy of all of these vain things purely based on the fact she's a model, and then at the same time saying it's wrong to judge someone based on their looks (and don't even get me started on the fact that she was once on the judging panel for Miss Universe GB). The hypocrisy of the whole situation was overwhelming.

Oh, and I especially loved the fact that everyone (quite rightly) felt so sorry for Becky but, from the way the show was edited, nobody even bothered to ask if Amy was okay after coming under fire because she's dared to make a name for herself out of being attractive.

The bottom line is that some people are naturally very beautiful and so strive to win beauty contests, some people are naturally athletic and so strive to become Olympians, some people like to care for others and so strive to become nurses or doctors, and some people are good at drama and so strive to become actors. All of these people are worth something, and none of them deserve to be targeted for pursuing what they love, whether you think it's worth something or not.

Yes, the media needs to be doing more to promote self-confidence and rid itself of the idea that a woman is only worth something if she's pretty, but that does not mean a complete reversal into the idea that a woman is only worth something if she's achieved something not based on her looks. 

I suppose it's a good thing that a prime time TV show has chosen to raise these kinds of questions, rather than edit them out, but I guess I'm just of the opinion that if women were allowed to do whatever they love without being penalised by others, then these questions wouldn't even need to be asked in the first place. I know, bloody crazy, right?