After a couple days in the I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here jungle, the civilities go out the window and it becomes a sort of Lord of the Flies situation. Already the campmates have been bickering amongst themselves, although the hunger hasn’t quite set in enough for anything to become a full-blown fight— however, Dean McCullough’s tense words with Alan Halsall when he was woken up for log duty came close. Most recently, words were exchanged after camp leaders Barry McGuigan and Danny Jones assigned chores to their fellow campmates, and what appeared on the surface as a standard short-lived bicker between them and Loose Women’s Jane Moore is actually a much more telling issue.
The boxer and McFly star assigned Jane Moore and Tulisa Contostavlos washing up duty, a chore that Jane wasn’t afraid to share her opinion on. ‘Oh, what!? Is that because we’re women? Two women [got it before us], and now two more women!’ Barry was quick to defend himself, although Jane wasn’t too happy with his explanation. He said, ‘We were looking at you for possibly water duty, and I thought you’re 62-years-old, a year younger than me,’ only to be cut off by Jane pointing out, ‘Ageist and sexist!’ As she took the dishes to the river, she commented, ‘Seems much like the 1950s.’
Although her facts are not wrong— a camp full of men and yet only women have been chosen for ‘washing up duty’— the internet were quick to lash out at Jane. One viewer tweeted, ‘Get a grip Jane,’ with another chiming in, ‘What’s got Jane so triggered, it’s not that serious,’ but is this true? Another commented, ‘Shut up and do the dishes,’ and surely now Jane’s 1950s comment is feeling a bit too real.
Many at home may see no problem with the men doing the ‘manly jobs,’ even though when the two male camp leaders were originally delegating, even Danny admitted, ‘have we gone a bit male heavy on the strenuous jobs?' Viewers should be asking the same thing— why according to these men is GK Barry, a young woman in her prime, incapable of carrying logs? And why can’t manly featherweight boxer Barry McGuigan deign to wash a few plates, is he that much stronger than the female camp mates? Coleen Rooney is the only one who has been spotted exercising so far, maybe she’s more than happy to put those early morning squats to the test.
This backlash against Jane only further proves her point. Women are constantly being branded as annoying if they speak out about inequality, and this situation in the jungle is only mirrored by countless depressing real-life statistics on gender pay gaps and other forms of discrimination. The fact is, in the UK the gender pay gap still stands at 7%, and this is even larger for women aged 40 years and over or women of colour. The fact that Jane is getting backlash for simply pointing out the obvious— assigning only women to do the dishes is sexist— does not bode well for our society. If we can't handle a woman pointing out this obvious absurdity, how can other women be expected to come forward about their own injustices? And in answer to the earlier tweet— it is, in fact, that serious.