A new semester of school has just begun, and with it, my roommate has returned to our apartment from winter break. She also brought with her a new show that she apparently has been following. Last night she “reserved” the TV to watch the new episode. What, you may ask, is this show that has captivated my roommate’s attention? Tough Love.
On “Tough Love,” a reality TV show on VH1, contestants are trained on how to find a mate by a matchmaker, Steven Ward. With this brief description you can probably guess that the show is a recipe for a misogynistic disaster. He claims to have credentials to pick apart women because his mom was a matchmaker, although, at 28, he is not married, which seems to be the only goal that is worthwhile. Thus, he is failing at his own game. Additionally, besides telling women everything that they have going wrong for them, he also has some great (dripping with sarcasm) tips like this one (found on Steven Ward’s profile).
Fortunately, we have Current TV’s resident feminist, Sarah Haskins, to help make fun of the show for us:
I know the quality of the shows that VH1 produces are never up to my feminist standards, but I feel that shows like this SCREAM “offensive.” I watched an episode of “Tough Love” with my roommate and could not stop thinking about how insulting it is to women everywhere. The host dissects each woman, basically telling her that a man can never love her for who she is and that she should change herself to be more appealing to the opposite sex. Whatever happened to loving and respecting someone for who they are, quirks and all?
This post is cross-posted at www.niuwrc.blogspot.com.
Colette Morgan is a member of the 2009–10 AAUW Student Advisory Council.
Love it! I never saw Sarah Haskin’s before. So glad I have now been introduced. She is hilarious… and I agree, it definitely screams offensive. It perpetuates the “women are crazy” mentality.