Millionaire Matchmaker= not anti-feminist?

Season two of Millionaire Matchmaker just premiered two Thursdays ago. Matchmaker Patti Stranger offers this courting service to the millionaires who are having trouble finding "the one". Stranger's goal is to successfully "cure" these millionaires from their poor dating habits and to find their perfect mate suitable for marriage. The millionaires of this show were all men up until this season. I unfortunately did not get the chance to catch the millionairess episode.

Being that the majority of her millionaire clients are men, Stranger treats her women candidates as objects. She tells them to show cleavage, wear high heels and basically look absolutely flawless when they attend the meet-and-greets. In the season premier, she actually told one of these hopeless woman victims that she was too fat for the men and that she needed to lose weight before she was presentable. Let's keep in mind that these millionaire men are no prized pigs themselves. In fact, they are more-often-than-not narcissistic, thoughtless, older and unattractive. And you would think some of them have never seen a woman before! Of course, this is where Stranger whips them into shape and shows them how to properly woo a woman.

For the above reasons, I felt that a lot of women (and hopefully some men out there- the few that would even watch the show) would feel that Millionaire Matchmaker is incredibly anti-feminist. But I was surprised to find a few entries online that opposed my accusation- including an interview with Stranger herself. In an interview with Zap2It.com, Stranger states the following:

"'The rules never change. Men are men, and women are women," she says. "No matter how many times you think you're going to be equal to a man or you're going to become more the man, you're just going to emasculate the man. Then you're going to have a child on your hands. You really have to be a woman, a feminine woman. People think that's anti-feminist, but it's not.'"

In the rest of the interview, she defends this position more by saying that she believes a couple is the most successful if they assume their traditional gender roles. In other words, men will always be physical creatures, so women must be as physically appealing as possible in order to attract them.

After reading this interview with Stranger, I'm starting to see her point of view. Men do not have an anti-feminist mind. If they see a woman who is at least slightly sexually appealing they will seek her. If they are not intrigued, then they won't. This is how the world works, unfortunately. It's that plain and simple.

The upside to all of this is that Stranger does put these men in their place. If they are being an asshole or are seeking a woman way above their own level of attractiveness, she will call them out on it and tell them that they need to be more realistic in their expectations. At least we have SOME justification.