LIKE most women, I can still recall the savage cruelty of teenage girls; the pain and shame of the whispering campaigns, the brutal name-calling, the tears and feelings of desperation when other girls took against you for no reason. Boys can be rotten too, of course, but girls are particularly skilled at inflicting psychological torture on one other, and I was on both ends of many a sharp tongue.

Indeed, one of the true blessings of adulthood is the realisation that one doesn't have to either undergo or mete out such callousness. I assumed all women felt the same sense of relief. But if the vitriol aimed at Strictly Come Dancing finalist Alexandra Burke is anything to go by, it seems I'm way off the mark.

The former X Factor winner was by far the best dancer in this year's series, which concluded on Saturday night with a flourish of sequins and a win for Glaswegian Joe McFadden. Ms Burke's talent was obvious from the start and as the show progressed, so did her complete mastery of the jive, Charleston, Viennese Waltz, salsa et al, undoubtedly aided by the fact she is a trained performer with many years' of experience on the stage.

What progressed at the same time, however, was the intense and very personal abuse she received on social media after every performance, the majority of it apparently perpetrated by other women. A narrative characterising Ms Burke as a fake and a phoney, a teary, OTT drama queen that was using the recent death of her mother to elicit sympathy from the public, emerged early, stuck, and grew.

Now, don't get me wrong. Shows such as Strictly - which I love - are basically popularity competitions, and the celebrities who agree to put themselves up for the public vote (and are paid very handsomely to do so) should know what they're letting themselves in for. The whole concept is based on preference: we vote for the one we like best and become hyper-critical when the ones we're not so keen on hit the floor. The ruthlessness of the tabloid culture that drives the hype around shows like Strictly, meanwhile, is also part of the deal and only to be expected.

But what has happened to Ms Burke is different, the onslaught fuller, more personal and hate-filled. And it wasn't just tabloids and teenage girls that have been sticking the boot in. For weeks my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been full of sensible, intelligent women arguing over whether someone they've never met is "fake" or not. Memories of the adolescent playground came flooding back.

For me what's so grim and utterly unedifying about the whole thing is the fact that such behaviour gives all women a bad name and only perpetuates stereotypes of us as gossipy, back-stabbing "bitches", the latter being one of my most despised words.

So why is this happening to Alexandra Burke now? Some argue there is a racist undercurrent to the abuse, that Britain does not want to accept accomplished black and mix-race women. But I honestly think in this case the explanation is simpler, though just as sad. To me, it smacks of women still struggling to escape the pernicious gender socialisation yoke that demands we constantly judge each other.

Society starts us on this trope young, encouraging a focus on what we look like. Inevitably, the politics of envy emerge, resulting in binary narratives that flourish in the brutal teenage years, evidenced in insults based around being "ugly" or "bossy", and compliments based on being "pretty" and "likeable", concepts still apparently integral to the image of femininity.

All this baggage goes into adulthood with us, and it takes strength and experience to recognise and reject this self-directed misogyny.

In some ways social media has set society back, giving both genders the perfect platform to judge and abuse women in the most hurtful and public way possible. Facebook and Twitter revel in these binary insults, in depressing threads obsessing over minor offences and mistakes. I fear Ms Burke would have suffered the same fate regardless of her race.

We women need to work harder to escape such limiting, damaging judgement of ourselves and each other; and wider society needs to start this process at birth and focus on the wide range of intellectual, sporting and social achievements of our girls.

Until we do, hurtful, embarrassing, pointless hate-fests such as the one aimed at Ms Burke will continue in our school playgrounds as well as on national television, causing nothing but misery, and that cannot be good for any of us.

We could start by making a pact with ourselves that nasty comments about contestants on Strictly - or indeed any other reality show - should stay in the living room, and must only be shouted at the telly. Before we post a comment on social media, meanwhile, we should promise to ensure it passes the "would I honestly say this in public?" Test. In other words, we should be a bit kinder to one another.

Just for the record, I voted for Joe. I didn't particularly warm to Ms Burke personally, but I absolutely loved watching her dance. And isn't that the whole point of Strictly?