Real people turn on reality tv for true life
Melissa Sanchez, reporter

    Reality TV has become the latest trend in television. Viewers flock to their TVs at prime-time just to see who gets kicked off Survivor or who is the Weakest Link.

   For some reason, our lives just aren’t real enough for us anymore.

   After the networks gave away millions, they decided to start giving away something a little more outrageous—spouses.

   The Bachelor is the latest drivel oozing off ABC.

   For those who have yet to see it, it involves one rich and successful bachelor who has decided that the best way to find a wife is by choosing her out of 25 candidates on national television.

   He does this by eliminating a few women at the end of every episode until he finds the right woman. All the while, the camera is on their every move.

   Let me start by saying that I am by no means a raging feminist.

   I celebrate the differences between men and women, and accept that although we try to fight it, gender roles do exist.

   However, this show sickens me. It violates the image of women on many levels, and these women have brought it all on themselves, which is the worst part.

   The women on the show are regressing to a place that women fought long and hard to be liberated from.

   First of all, the bachelor is always a rich, successful, attractive man. The women, however, need only be attractive. Many are not educated further than high school, and I don’t think any are lawyers or doctors.

   What does this say about us? It tells women that looks are everything. Isn’t this what most women complain about?

   How many times have I heard women gripe about how much they hate men who are interested only in the way they look? Wake up—this show clearly states that appearance is something women should be consumed by, unless you believe that somehow the bachelor is eliminating 24 out of 25 women based on inner beauty. What a twisted message we are sending to our little girls.

   In the show’s defense, the women do have a say in the elimination process. After the bachelor has selected them, they have the power not to accept the invitation to the next round. That’s a joke to me.

   The women are competing for the bachelor’s affection, so why would they deny it? This is the network’s way of throwing in a little power to the women, but it doesn’t work because the women already look weak for choosing to be on the show in the first place.

   The women also look desperate. The show reveals the women behind the scenes fighting with each other and blubbering about how they think they love some guy they met two weeks ago. They look like hysterical fools, and the bachelor looks like a womanizing cad.

   These women are all very beautiful, and I have a hard time believing they cannot find a substantial pool of men to choose from on their own.
Are they so shallow that selling their dignity to prime time television is worthier than finding someone on their own respectable terms?

   The show makes women in general look like helpless, immature, absent-minded idiots. Most other women are not like this. Most women are intelligent, responsible and independent, yet this image is being tainted by shows like The Bachelor.

   The women on the show who encourage this image are the same ones who complain about how poorly men view them. Men are merely reacting to what they are seeing, and when they keep seeing women as brainless twits, can we honestly blame their assumptions?

   This show is sick. It is neither entertaining nor accurate. It allows women to be ridiculed, and as a woman I am offended. Some may find it amusing and cute, but I am appalled that this is what ABC is resorting to for good ratings.

   What about the message this show is sending regarding male and female interaction? We need to be a little wiser about how this sort of trash contaminates our minds and ultimately affects our society.