I heard about a new reality TV series on the radio coming home from work today. It's called "Gadget or the Girl," and the premise is what you can expect from the title. Male contestants get to choose between a super-awesome high-tech gadget or a weekend vacation with the girl of their choice.
While this is on Playboy TV (so what can we really expect from a company who's business is exploiting and objectifying women), it makes some assumptions about women that are disgusting to me. Firstly, that women are the equivalent to an object (otherwise it wouldn't be a very tough decision). Secondly, that women's affections can be bought and sold (or won in this case). And thirdly, that only men are truly interesting in these high-tech gadgets (they'd have to make them pink for girls to be interested in them at all).
It's just sad that our society still accepts these out-dated ideas of women. This show was advertised on the local "family-friendly" radio station in my town. People just don't see the problem with women being used as available commodities. This isn't just a problem with this particular game show. Most games shows either use women as prizes (like many of the "dating" ones do) or use them as objects in the show (to show of prizes or just to stand around and be pretty). It's sick and reaffirms my decision to stop watching television.
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1) Playboy has its own TV channel??? (HORRIFIED) Things I never wanted to know... :(
2) I hate Hugh Hefner.
3) Really, really seriously hate him.
4) A spiffy gadget or a weekend with a random stranger who (playing the odds -- I doubt you have a lot of female neuroscientists signing up for this show) would probably bore me to tears? Um, gadget please!
And if you make it pink I will have it repainted.
Here's a link I found to a brief description of this show. While the actual article isn't terribly interesting, the comments are (in a trigger-warning kind of way). http://gizmodo.com/5035681/gadget-or-the-girl-reality-show-makes-you-choose-between-ipod-or-ipoon
This is my personal favorite (from user "banmojo"). (In case you needed to know how much a woman was worth and how much we like money).
"yeah, without a guaranteed booty call, me takes the gadget no contest.
WITH a guaranteed booty call, she'd have to be REALLY hot to make me give up a 60 inch screen. I mean, you can get (so I've heard) really hot poon down in Tijuana or over in Manila for 100-200$ (less if you're even semi decent looking) so who amongst us would shell out 1000-5000$ for a hot night of hot sex with a hot chick? I'm not that rich yet, for sure.
And if I were, I wouldn't be needing no damn contest/tv show to get the hot chicks, they'd be stuck on like flies on feces."
*shudder*
Thanks for the link, Melissa. I tried posting a comment -- they have to be approved first -- so we'll see if they can tolerate the frightening idea of a comment that doesn't bash women...
Ugh. Way to alienate women from the geeky tech world. I, however, like pink. I might not object to to it being pink. This doesn't mean I'm fine with the gadgets 'needing' to be pink to get women to want them.
I found the comments to be better than expected. They noted that women have personalities, and these women potentially having boring ones. Of course, there were also comments on how they wanted to show off pictures of them with said bikini clad girl. Ugh.
Unfortunately, choosing a gadget is like saying a gadget is better than a woman, but choosing a woman is like saying "I have a right to win a vacation with this sexy piece of ass."
Either way, it's a lose-lose for us girls.