How Television Slipped Back into the 1950’s

Jeopardy’s host Alex Trebek was put on the hot-spot Monday night. The “intelligent” quiz show, which has existed for decades decided to take a little trip down memory lane to a time when women were (even) less equal to the “alpha” sex of society. Somehow the producers’ red-flags remained down by their sides when presented with a new category of questions entitled; What Women Want. Fair enough, maybe the new category is for once, actually going to reflect what women want, i.e. equal pay and rights at the office.

But NO!

The new category entailed question-answers, to the what seems to be men’s eternal quest of what it is that women actually want, such as; A pair of jeans that fit well, like the 525’s from this brand. With the blatantly obvious answer-question; What are Levi’s?

Seriously Jeopardy? Seriously? This is what you think women want? Maybe to you, a well fitting pair of jeans is the most important part of a woman, but what about what women actually want? Wasn’t that the question in the first place? At least get your information double checked for accuracy, geez!!!

I do feel sorry for Mr. Trebek who had to read these answer-questions out loud, on national television, because I really don’t think it was him who came up with it.

Today (Tuesday) the media, especially social media and the blogs have been booming with outraged messages toward this lil faux pas of prime time television. After reading about how beautiful Sophia Bush had taken to twitter to communicate her dislike of the Jeopardy category, this morning on Perez Hilton’s facebook feed (http://perezhilton.com/2014-09-30-jeopardy-has-sexist-category-what-women-want-sophia-bush-blasts-on-twitter/?from=post), I decided that this was a story worth investigating further (Perez, you’re great but not the most reliable of sources). Now, a few hours later it seems as though the entire twitterverse is in outraged about what it is that women actually want. 

So after reading more on the topic, such as all the twitter feeds #whatwomenwant (https://twitter.com/hashtag/whatwomenwant?src=hash), and Neha Prakash’s informative and humorous take on it all on Mashable (http://mashable.com/2014/09/30/jeopardy-what-women-want-sexism/), I decided that even I was going to do a shout-out about it! So here goes…

Seriously Jeopardy? No, wait… Seriously Male Species? You haven’t gotten further in your evolution? Do you seriously think that standard, sexist answers from the early 1950’s is the equivalent to what the concerns are of a modern-day woman? After fantastic moments for feminism lately, for example Emma Watson’s speech about feminism to the UN, things like this still happen. Is it ever going to change? Did our mothers burn their bra’s for nothing?