Living Happily Ever After? : The Reinforcement of Stereotypical Gender Roles on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette

Living Happily Ever After? : The Reinforcement of Stereotypical Gender Roles on
The Bachelor and The Bachelorette




















Erin Victoria Klewin
William E. Stanwood, Thesis Advisor
Boston College
May 2007

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Acknowledgments



There have been many people over the past year who have in one way or another
helped and participated in the creation of this senior thesis. First and foremost, I dedicate
this thesis to my family for encouraging me to undertake this project and challenge
myself, and for helping me push through even at the most stressful of times. They have
given me endless love and support my entire life and have never stopped believing in me,
and I am eternally thankful to them.

I also want to thank my advisor, Professor Bill Stanwood, for his countless hours
of guidance, support and optimism. Coming in as my advisor later than normal, he has
been optimistic and excited about this project from day one. Constantly available and
willing to help, he has had such confidence in my abilities. This thesis would not be what
it is today if not for Professor Stanwood’s direction and continual support, and I feel
privileged to have had him as my advisor.

Finally, I want to thank the Communication Department and the Arts & Sciences
Honors Program of Boston College for affording me the opportunity to engage in such a
challenging yet fulfilling project. It has been a tremendous learning experience and one
which I am incredibly thankful for!

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Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1
Background of the Problem ................................................................................................ 2
“Realism” and Reality TV .............................................................................................. 2
Gender Stereotypes ......................................................................................................... 4
Research Question ............................................................................................................ 10
Rationale ........................................................................................................................... 10
Literature Review ............................................................................................................. 13
Gender Stereotypes and Television .............................................................................. 13
Effects of Gender Stereotyped Television .................................................................... 17
Depiction and support for traditional gender roles on Reality TV ............................... 18
Alternative gender roles made to look deviant ............................................................. 21
Commodification of Female Sexuality on Reality TV ................................................. 25
Dating Shows’ Connection to Fairy Tales .................................................................... 28
Method .............................................................................................................................. 29
Results............................................................................................................................... 33
Demographics ............................................................................................................... 33
Age............................................................................................................................ 33
Hair Color ................................................................................................................. 34
Body Type................................................................................................................. 34
The Bachelor demographics ..................................................................................... 34
The Bachelorette demographics................................................................................ 36

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Behaviors – Frequency Counts ..................................................................................... 39
Emotionality (F) & Unemotionality (M). ................................................................. 39
Affection (F) & Lack of Affection (M) ................................................................... 42
Romantic/Desire Cinderella Fairytale (F) & opposite (M)....................................... 43
Independence (M) & Dependence (F) ...................................................................... 45
Sexual Assertion (M) & Sexual Modesty (F) ........................................................... 48
Confidence (M) & Lack of Confidence (F) .............................................................. 51
Aggression (M) & Lack of Aggression (F)............................................................... 55
Competitiveness (M) & Non-Competitiveness (F)................................................... 58
Impressed with Appearances (F) .............................................................................. 60
Valuing Female Appearance/Sexuality (M) ............................................................. 62
Comparisons Among Series.......................................................................................... 64
Alex (Bachelor) v. Trista (Bachelorette) .................................................................. 64
Female Contestants (Bachelor) v. Male Contestants (Bachelorette) ........................ 65
Alex (Bachelor) v. Male contestants (Bachelorette)................................................. 66
Trista (Bachelorette) v. Female contestants (Bachelor)............................................ 67
Distinct Roles Discovered............................................................................................. 69
Discussion......................................................................................................................... 70
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 79
Appendices........................................................................................................................ 81
References......................................................................................................................... 85

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Abstract
This analysis examined the depiction of stereotyped gender roles on the reality
television shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette to determine if gender stereotypes
are reinforced within these shows. This study found a lack of stereotype reinforcement in
that non-stereotypical behavior patterns were most prevalent among both males and
females in the “contestant” role. However, stereotype reinforcement was confirmed in
that women were more likely to be younger and thinner than men, gender-stereotypical
behaviors were more prevalent than not among individuals in the bachelor/ette role, and a
female positioned in the more traditionally “male” role of the bachelorette still remained
more stereotypically “feminine”. Also notable was the reinforcement of patriarchic
heterosexuality by a male-initiated marriage proposal in the so-called “feminist” The
Bachelorette. Overall, gender stereotypes were portrayed as normal and desirable, and
female stereotypes continued to persist over male.


Introduction
Within the last five decades, television has established itself as the dominant
American mass medium, and is credited with being the great equalizer in American
society (Davis, 1990). It teaches us what is believed to be important and what behaviors
society considers appropriate (Glascock, 1996). Most recently, reality television has burst
onto the television scene, and in fact, may be displacing drama and comedy as the
mainstays of prime-time programming (Butsch, 2006), with its popularity having grown
rapidly over the past ten years. Reality shows are thought to be more true-to-life than
their scripted counterparts, as they follow the lives of non-actors and display what is
believed to be authentic emotion. Not all reality television, however, displays real life
uninterrupted; many shows are actually cast, plotted and edited to produce a desired
outcome, and yet the misnomer “reality” leads viewers to believe that what they are
watching is in fact real (Robins, 2005).

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Background of the Problem
“Realism” and Reality TV
There are many who contend that MTV’s The Real World began the reality
television trend back in 1992 (Roth, 2000). Still on the air 15 years later and in its 18th
season, The Real World shows how successful the plot device of casting seven strangers
of diverse backgrounds and placing them in a beautiful house to live together for six
months can be (The Real World, 2007). The show combined elements of soap opera
narrative style with “fly on the wall” filmmaking, a combination which has played an
important role in spawning the reality television genre (Landrum & Carmichael, 2002).
However, The Real World was not the first program to provide this combination; its roots
can be traced all the way back to 1973 with the PBS series An American Family.
An American Family recorded and broadcast the lives of the upper-middle class
Loud family of Santa Barbara, California in 1973 (Landrum & Carmichael, 2002). The
series creator, Craig Gilbert, realized that radical changes were occurring in the “social
fabric of America” at the time (p. 67). Believing the traditional American family was
becoming obsolete due to a widening generation gap and other cultural indicators, he
sought to document those changes through the lens of one American family. According to
Ruoff, Gilbert’s goal was to develop a portrait of a family that captured “the breakdown
of fixed distinctions between public and private, reality and spectacle, serial narrative and
nonfiction, documentary and fiction, and film and television” (as cited in Landrum &
Carmichael, 2002, p. 66). At the time, An American Family was considered a failure
because it did not adhere to the codes of traditional documentary film, but its hybrid form

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of storytelling can today be appreciated as opening the doors to a new genre – reality
television (Landrum & Carmichael, 2002).
As a model for subsequent reality television programming, An American Family
contributed the now common device of reliance on editing to deliver a story with a
certain viewpoint. For example, the filmmakers portrayed Pat Loud as the “good wife”
and Bill Loud as the “bad husband” as the story of their impending divorce panned out,
“carefully constructing their ‘characters’ through deliberate editing choices” (Landrum &
Carmichael, 2002, p. 69). This combination of soap opera narrative techniques with
documentary filmmaking served as the nucleus of the subsequent reality television
explosion in the 1990s. In fact, the The Real World was created by a woman with a
background in soap operas (Mary-Ellis Bunim) and a man who came out of news and
documentaries (John Murray), both of whom were fascinated by An American Family
(2002). Thus, “unrealistic” aspects of reality television can be seen as being a huge part
of the mix from the very beginning.
Indeed, the next, current wave of reality television beginning with the break-out
hit Survivor in 2000 was born out of ‘ordinary’ people in ‘extraordinary’ situations –
Survivor marooned sixteen castaways on a deserted island while competing in physical
challenges to win $1 million (Hill & Quin, 2002). In essence, the editors become the so-
called “writers” of the show, “construct[ing] a narrative from the raw material that both
compresses time and highlights the inter-relationships between members of the ‘cast’” (p.
55). Yet these shows are interpreted as “real” for several reasons. First, series such as Big
Brother, Popstars, Temptation Island and Survivor employ the principle of elimination in
order to provoke drama and betrayals between people that are real, even if everything

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else is highly contrived (Hill & Quin, 2002). The “game show” element of these shows
provide make uncertainty a key part of the viewing experience, which leads to the second
reason for their perceived reality: these programs exude an element of “liveness.” They
offer the same attractions as live television to viewers, promising participation,
unpredictability and spontaneity, and allow audiences to believe that anything could
happen, despite the fact that they are carefully edited (Hill & Quin, 2002).
Many theories exist as to why reality television has caught on to the world’s
consciousness and remained popular for so long. Hill & Quin (2002) claim the “liveness”
of reality television is a primary reason for its success, offering the viewer dual status as
“removed observer” and “involved participant” (p. 50). Raphael (1997) argues that its
popularity was a result of economic pressures; due to its use of non-actors and unscripted
nature, its low production costs in response to rapidly rising production costs made it
very profitable. Landrum & Carmichael (2002) cite “America’s fascination with
celebrity, diversity and individual liberation” as resulting in the widespread popularity of
reality television (p. 68), and Reiss & Wiltz (2001) similarly claim that reality television
provides an outlet for ordinary Americans to fantasize about “gaining status through
automatic fame” (p. 54). Thus, a combination of low production costs and high viewer
interest has resulted in the omnipresence of reality television programming seen on the
airwaves today.
Gender Stereotypes
An issue that has characterized and plagued the medium of television since its
inception in the 1940s has been stereotyping and especially traditional gender
stereotyping. Stereotypes are strongly held overgeneralizations about people in a given

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social group, which are often not true due to their extreme oversimplification (Basow,
1992). Consequently, gender stereotypes are defined as “structured sets of beliefs about
the personal attributes of women and men,” and are normative in their implication that
gender-linked characteristics not only exist, but are desirable (Ashmore & Del Boca,
1979, p. 222).
Gender stereotypes for men and women are often polarized; that is, their
characteristic traits are often viewed as being opposite one another (Basow, 1992). For
example, masculinity is often associated with traits such as rationality, efficiency,
competition, individualism and ruthlessness. Femininity is conversely associated with
such traits as emotionality, prudence, cooperation, a communal sense, and compliance
(Chandler, n.d.). The correspondence of these traits with particular genders are expressed
in a number of studies conducted during the late 1960s and early 1970s with nearly 1000
males and females (I. Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972;
Rosenkrantz, Vogel, Bee, Broverman, & Broverman, 1968). In these studies, more than
75% of those asked agreed that 41 polarized traits clearly differentiated males and
females. For men, some desirable traits included being very aggressive, self-confident,
worldly, objective, always acting as a leader, and not at all emotional, with the opposite
being true for females. For women, desirable traits included being very talkative, tactful,
gentle, interested in their own appearance, having a strong need for security, and being
aware of other’s feelings, with the opposite being true for males. Overall, women were
more often categorized as communal, self-less and other-oriented, and men were
characterized as assertive and achievement-oriented.

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But how did these traditional gender stereotypes, most notably female
submissiveness and male dominance, first become embraced by society? Basow (1992)
points to both physical and psychological factors. Because men are “naturally” larger and
stronger than women, and women are “incapacitated” by childbirth, men have historically
been assigned to more strenuous and dangerous positions, such as hunters and warriors,
while women were relegated to domestic labor and activities compatible with childcare.
The “greater hemispheric flexibility” of the female brain and an edge in verbal skills also
seem well suited to the traditional mother’s role (p. 111), while men’s apparent
superiority in visual-spatial skills suit them for a hunter role. Basow (1996) also points to
three distinct stereotypes of women that exist today: the housewife (traditional woman),
the professional woman (independent, ambitious and self confident) and the sex object. In
contrast, the traditional male stereotype is comprised of three main factors – status,
toughness, and anti-femininity.
These gender stereotypes exist both on a personal level as well as a cultural level,
for example as reflected in the media (Basow, 1992). In fact, Sayre and King (2003)
claim that the media are often accused of encouraging stereotyping. All men and women
are aware of the cultural prevalence of traditional stereotypes, and television does much
to contribute to this awareness (Chandler, n.d.). Indeed, Glascock (1996) points to the
rising concern regarding the characterization of women on television due to the
omnipresence of stereotypical depictions (Glascock, 1996).
Due to the carefully plotted and contrived nature of many reality shows, the
reality television genre is not immune to gender stereotyping. This is especially true in
regard to casting – producers undertake exhaustive processes to provide viewers with a

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