Desperation is a dish best served on national television.

I want to start this post by saying that I am far from a snob when it comes to media consumption. I read the New Yorker regularly but also subscribe to Glamour. I DVR "Sunday Morning" & "Meet the Press" as well as "Teen Mom". I've been known to wear my Jimmy Choos with Forever 21 clothes. What I'm saying is, I like high and low brow entertainment.

That said, there is one show on television that absolutely makes me apoplectic b/c it is both mind-numbingly stupid and incredibly popular. That would be the well past its expiration date "Bachelor/Bachelorette" franchise.

While I take issue with both incarnations of this misguided matchmaking mess (holy alliteration Batman!), my ire really lies with "The Bachelor" version. I haven't and won't make a habit of airing my political/social views on this blog, as I strive to keep it a fun, airy take on my existence. I will however out myself as a liberal feminist in this moment to explain why I find this show so gross is all its bullshit TV glory.

I was raised by two working parents, and while they both worked their asses of to provide the very best for me, I will focus on my mother for the purposes of this post. My mother is an incredible role model. She is educated, accomplished, talented and just so happens to be drop dead gorgeous. My mother could have (and still could) married for money and used her looks to get ahead. She didn't. She followed her passions and has a career and a beautiful family to show for it. I was raised, as an only girl, to think for myself, to achieve and to never forget that you always need to be prepared to take care of yourself and not rely on a man for your existence. I have an incredible husband who has big dreams and is working hard to provide me the option to do whatever I like in this life and I appreciate it with all my heart. But you can be damn sure that I am more than capable of taking care of myself should the need arise. My husband knows this too and respects me. It's one of the reasons he married me.

Now I couldn't care less if a woman chooses to work or not. What really sticks in my craw about the losers who both star in and compete for the affections of "The Bachelor" is that it perpetuates this BS myth about love and marriage and gender roles on TV. In 2008 we watched two women come this close to being President & Vice President of the United States, but if ABC is to be believed, a woman's best shot at success is still pushing up her boobs, throwing on a sherbet colored prom dress and shamelessly throwing herself at some generically handsome idiot who hasn't managed to find "love" in his 30 plus years on Earth.

Women have and will always use their sexuality to get ahead, I am certainly no exception. But what the empty coiffed vessels of this show don't get is that your beauty should not be the sum total of what you have to offer. It should be layered with education, ambition, ethics, faith and compassion. But that's not good TV I guess. So until the masses stop tuning into this crap, my guess is that there will be 14 more seasons of this shallow drivel, watching the latest crop of soulless Barbies compete for their Ken and their inevitable US Weekly cover to detail why they just couldn't make it work once the helicopter dates dried up.

Me, I'll keep rolling my eyes and wait for the show where 25 average looking girls with kickass jobs and degrees compete for the affections of a shy, nerdy graphic designer with a cat.