A friend of mine was on University Challenge pre-internet era. She still remembers the comments she got, including two marriage proposals – “one of which also pointed out he would have got more questions right.”

Some things never change. Others do, in form at least, if not content. The comments my friend received came by letter, via the BBC or her university and were manageable in both number and – just about – tone. Now, when a female contestant appears on the show, both can be overwhelming. All can expect to have their looks scrutinised, bangability scored and behaviour analysed (was she flirting with Jeremy Paxman for extra points?). Degrading at best, criminally abusive at worst – and all over social media, on news sites and in tabloids for weeks thereafter.

Male contestants, meanwhile, are celebrated for being themselves (witness last year’s #Monkmania, centred around rather eccentric contestant Eric Monkman, for instance). And that is how it should be.

In a recent interview, the captain of 2015-16’s champions Dr Hannah Rose Woods, and last year’s winning team member, Rose McKeown, both cited the type of attention afterwards as one of the biggest reasons for the show’s lack of female team members (between 70 and 90% of applicants are male).

It got me thinking about how often we recuse ourselves from events or don’t do things because we feel that, aesthetically, we’re not up to it. I do it – shamefully, humiliatingly, I-would-kick-my-own- arse-if-I-couldly – often. I have lost count of the number of (paid!) gigs I have turned down because I can’t bear how I will look on the recording or the pictures, or because I know I will just feel too awful about being seen in the light of day by large numbers of people.

“What University Challenge teaches us about how women experience the world”