Shame, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.

By yoking “shame” to the familiar proverb “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Burchill frames shame as a socially produced judgment rather than an intrinsic property of an act or person. The line suggests that what is deemed disgraceful depends heavily on who is looking—on cultural norms, power relations, and the observer’s moral expectations. It can be read as a critique of public shaming and moral policing: the same behavior may be condemned in one context and ignored or even celebrated in another. The aphorism also implies a defense of individual autonomy, urging skepticism toward imposed standards of respectability.