Caroline Blair

The recent change in the format of The Bachelorette has been widely criticized since it was announced. Instead of one bachelorette trading in her career for a Neil Lane engagement ring, there will be two and they will compete for the “love” of 25 men.  This development has turned The Bachelorette from an (albeit imperfect) inversion of The Bachelor premise to an extension of it: The franchise is now entirely comprised of women pitted against women in a competition to become someone’s wife. Which makes me wonder, is there a space for strong women in reality television?

The response I landed on is a qualified yes. If you’ve seen the most recent season of Top Chef I think you get an idea about what competition between women should look like. The show has always stood out amongst reality television for its emphasis on professionalism and avoidance of petty dramas and hookups. Unfortunately, Top Chef suffers the same gender biases that characterize the rest of the restaurant industry; in 2010 the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported only 19% of chefs and head cooks in the United States were female, but that working women spent more than twice as much time preparing meals as working men. In its eleven-season run the show only had two female winners. This season saw a third, Mei Lin, the sous chef of ink. in Los Angeles. While Lin’s win is notable in its own right, what struck me about ...