Why Women Watch The Bachelor

No matter how much criticism ABC's The Bachelor receives, women continue to watch. We are annoyed by the women who would stoop to the level of going on the show. We complain that they look and act fake. The men frustrate us by their cavalier attitude when it comes to kissing multiple women each night. One of the men didn't even bother to choose a woman at the end of the process. Shame on him, we said. But even if he had proposed to one of them, we know that the relationships rarely last.

But we continue to tune in. Why?

Escape
For the very reason the show is criticized, it also holds our interest: it's not at all realistic. The men have six-pack abs and a perfect tan. The women have perfect bodies and ultra-white teeth. The women are all competing against each other for a single man. They live in their respective mansions and go on unbelievable vacations to let love take root and grow. And the man develops feelings for almost all of them. The point is that the show is an escape from everyday reality. For an hour or two we can forget the dirty dishes, the laundry, imperfect people in our lives, our imperfect selves. Even if this other world is fake and we hate it, it's a world where nothing is required of us, there are no expectations, and we can simply sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery.

Safe, Easy Targets
Even those of us who are considerate, professional women who don't do much criticizing of others still need to kick back once in awhile and let our frustrations out. We are much too mature to displace work and family frustration onto our our husbands, kids, or pets, of course, so who better than the Bachelor girls to receive the brunt of the day's stress. The men and women who agree to go on the Bachelor are just the safe, easy targets we need. We feel these people have opened themselves up for criticism and evaluation, so we are not averse to delivering it. As far as the men go, we might think they are safe targets for minor crushes since they are unattainable and "not our type anyway" or we might be repulsed by them because they represent everything we hate about the other sex. Either way, the emotion we feel toward them -- or the fact that we feel nothing at all -- is safe.

Reinforces Our Own Depth as Individuals
Whether it's the trivial drama we see play out in the house, the lengths to which we see many of the women go just to "get a man", or the tears cried by every rejected and dejected woman because she's not "the one", we are reminded that our own lives are REAL. We don't have time to cry over this unattainable, fake, probably-a-major-skeleton-in-his-closet man because our concerns are legitimate. We have things to do, families to raise, and jobs to return to. Yes, we are imperfect and the people around us are imperfect as well, but that's what gives us depth. We don't have the same body type as every other woman around us -- thank goodness. We don't have the same boobs, the same teeth, the same tan. We aren't all wearing the same outfits and saying the same words to the same man we all love. Our lives and stories are as varied as the families, children, and friend who surround us. We are enriched by this variation and imperfection. Our lives have depth because they are not cookie-cutter. And we wouldn't give them up for the world.

But let us know when the next episode of The Bachelor is because we'll be tuning in.