When the television show “The Bachelor” airs, many women watch it for the supposed romance and over-the-top drama.
This show is not the sweet, romantic story people believe it to be. It is not healthy for the women on set, and it promotes combative behavior between women and hookup culture.
“The Bachelor” is unhealthy for the contestants-mentally and physically. According to Margaret Abrams, who published an article in Cosmopolitan about her experience auditioning for the show, every woman was dressed to look perfect, cute and sexy. Some women wanted to impress further and dressed over-the-top, but it wasn’t good enough.
“As the intern manning the door instructs her to go inside, he yells ‘Good luck!’ and tells his fellow intern ‘We’ll never see her again!’ almost as loudly,” Abrams said.
This comment was about a woman who was a bit overdressed for the event, but she still seemed to look extremely beautiful. This can be bruising to many of the women’s egos and it can make them twice as anxious for their audition than before, since it makes it seem like the audition is based off their looks.
It’s also completely disrespectful to those contestants after they tried so hard to look and be their best to impress the producers of the show. Some women may actually be looking for real love, and behavior like that only shows them their looks aren’t good enough even after doing their best to impress.
Abrams also mentions she refuses to eat donuts that are set out for everyone to eat because she is afraid eating one will immediately disqualify her.
That behavior is destructive for many people. To receive that vibe is quite offensive, especially to women who have lower self-esteem. I genuinely hope those donuts were not set out to test the women.
According to Insider, every woman is subjected to extensive background checks, psychological checks and STD tests.
One would not think much about those details until one woman mentions there were no condoms in the room during the fantasy suite dates, which are for the last two contestants. The bachelor usually has sexual relations with both women and does not use protection of any kind.
That’s not hot, especially if he has been with another woman recently.
The women don’t have a workout area in the house and they are encouraged to consume alcohol. They are not allowed to leave the house or allowed to contact anyone outside the house. They also cannot use their cell phones, laptops or Wi-Fi.
This can make the situation much more stressful, since they don’t have any healthy outlets for their stress.
Some women run up the hill by the house for exercise, and some will squeeze in 30 minutes at a hotel gym when they travel, but that’s about it.
This show also pits women against each other for more views. They may not actually have serious fights all the time on air, but the producers don’t have a problem taking certain clips to manipulate into something else for the audience.
On Vogue.com, one former contestant mentions how much everyone got along.
“Sometimes things would happen at cocktail parties, but off camera, not so much,” she said.
This means the producers display as much drama for the viewers as possible for popularity, which can send the message that it’s okay to fight over a man or bicker as much as possible. This takes women back a few steps if they think it’s fun to watch this show.
“The Bachelor” promotes hookup culture in our society by the very premise of the show itself.
One man gets to choose one woman to propose to out of a large group of women. Every contestant has to be a knockout, and the bachelor spends his days kissing and frolicking with every single one of them. He even has sexual relations with some of them.
This premise shows society that it’s okay to go through women for the supposed romance of it all. It’s not actually okay to go through a bunch of women like that. Most of the time, the bachelor and the winner don’t even stay together too long after the show.
So at the end of the day, one man goes through a bunch of women just to end up a bachelor again. Isn’t that just peachy?
Abigail Varnado is a 21-year-old English senior from Amite, Louisiana.