Jeopardy Category Answers The Question, ‘What is Blatant Sexism?’
According to the writing staff for the show Jeopardy, what women want isn’t equal pay, bodily autonomy, or even an end to tired gender stereotyping. On Monday night’s installment of the long-running game show, the second round of play actually featured a category titled “What Women Want”, and the correct answers included “Pilates” and “Levi’s jeans”. Are the writers aware that television demographics outside of “men age 54 and up”? Or do they think women don’t have time to watch TV because they’re busy doing all the vacuuming?
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PykyHB56knU]
The absence of forethought that went into creating this category is as prominent as the mustache still missing from Alex Trebek’s face. Watching the YouTube clip of this category felt like falling through a time warp into ancient history, except that it’s not ancient history, because in the year two thousand freaking fourteen, people are being paid to write heavily-stereotyped questions like these to be aired on an actual television network.
Yes, the essence of femaleness distilled by Jeopardy boils down to clothes, exercise (but the fashionable, girly kind), and being a relentless harridan about housework to a poor hapless spouse. (Just as an FYI, Jeopardy, none of my jeans really fit anymore but I don’t care because I’m always wearing yoga pants; back when I had time to exercise I was too busy earning my black belt to do Pilates; and I think my husband would faint if I ever remembered to empty the vacuum canister. Or to vacuum.)
If you’re still not sure of the problem here (bitches love Pilates, right?!) try imagining a world where Jeopardy would see fit to air a segment featuring a category called “What Men Want”. If you personally were asked to make such a list, you could stereotypically add sports and maybe beer to the list; but this is a category that would never make it to air on a TV show. No one would be willing assume that every single adult male shares the same interests and desires, not the same way they’re willing to do with women. Men are individuals, with unique personalities and interests. Women are a different species entirely, and one that can be tidily summed up in broad generalizations (and then summarily dismissed).
So here’s a newsflash to the writers at Jeopardy: it’s not 1965 anymore. According to Jezebel, the average age of your viewers is 64. The dinosaurs who are amused at the idea of a woman struggling to get her husband to empty the vacuum aren’t going to be around to watch your stupid show forever. And who’s going to pick up the remote control then? Because it sure isn’t going to be me. You know want to know what women want? Why don’t you start with something simple: I suggest a quiz show that’s actually worth our thirty minutes to watch.
(Images: YouTube)
