Hillary Clinton may prove ultimately unsuccessful, but her glass ceiling–shattering presidential campaign made it crystal clear that a woman’s place is anywhere she wants it to be. Alas, occasionally that place is on reality dating shows, where women are reduced to stereotypically voracious husband-seekers.
First there’s How to Find a Husband, in which a “bloody gorgeous, funny, clever and successful” British woman decides she’s a failure without a man and gives herself 10 weeks to hook one — camera crew in tow, dignity be damned.
There are also the sad, pneumonic women competing for a venereal disease from Poison’s Bret Michaels on his Rock of Love show and the sad, pneumatic women competing to marry some British dude on the umpteenth season of The Bachelor.
Animal husbandry
And then there’s Farmer Wants a Wife, the sort of show where an oft-shirtless farmer shaves his chest and must choose a mate among 10 squealing city gals in stilettos.
Most of the contestants on this rural Bachelor are in their early twenties — which is so not the marrying age — and it’s all rather silly. The first girl to get the boot was literally afraid of chickens, while the villainous Josie (voted out in Episode 2 against the producers’ wishes) was a beastly quote machine. She refused to do chores because it was “working class,” assumed farmers’ wives hung out at polo matches, called the lone black contestant “ghetto” and proudly declared that she’ll “fight for love like they do in the Middle East — I’m gonna blow you up before you blow me up.”
When eventually sent packing — after announcing in the local bingo hall that all the Jews, Christians and Catholics need to join forces to prevent the apocalypse — she refused to leave the farm without a parting gift.
As you may have guessed from its hot mess of a title, this is one of those reality shows so over the top it’s virtually indistinguishable from a parody like Joe Schmoe. This week, the girls turned on each other, slamming the two token virgins for harmlessly flirting with some middle-aged locals at the pub. The pair were ridiculously accused of being dishonourable, as if there was any honour attached to this (occasionally amusing) exercise in sexual inequality.
FARMER WANTS A WIFE AIRS WEDNESDAYS, 9PM ON CW; HOW TO FIND A HUSBAND AIRS WEDNESDAYS, 9PM ON SLICE.
Survival of the feminist
It’s easy to dismiss these dating programs as culturally irrelevant, but they are nonetheless projecting into homes an ugly, old-fashioned message that women must compete for a man’s affections or risk spinsterdom. But the just-concluded Survivor offered an antidote.
The women on this 16th season of the reality pioneer have utterly dominated; using bikini-clad flirting, whip-smart strategy and gender loyalty to totally mindfuck the dumb boys into complacence and manipulate them off the beach. As string-puller Cirie’s mama told her, if you can’t beat them with your brawn, best use your brains.
Over the last month of episodes, the all-ladies alliance has shown the most deviously cunning game-play Survivor has ever seen — at one point, the women actually convinced Erik to give up the immunity he had won in a challenge, only to be instantly ousted. Ozzy may’ve been able to swim like a fish, but he was lulled into not using his hidden immunity idol and similarly booted. The following week, the exact same thing happened to Jason.
This led to the game’s first-ever all-female final four, with sexy boxer Parvati Shallow being rewarded for playing an aggressive social game heavy on shocking blindsides.
As Eric said after his torch was summarily snuffed, “There’s one thing to be said for surviving the elements, another for surviving four crazy, sexy women.”