Naomi Wolf in the Washington Post offers a very insightful look at how American culture is obsessed with the women who are “falling apart”:

Most American women are becoming ever more comfortable with their capabilities as they break into new professional roles, learn how to do electrical wiring or automobile maintenance, tackle life insurance, IRAs and tax planning on behalf of the many configurations of family they are nurturing, or even put their lives on the line as warriors in Iraq. They are surprising themselves and the culture every day by not falling apart as they take on tasks that the prefeminist world was sure would lead them to collapse in a heap, needing smelling salts.

Yet at the same time, the culture seems increasingly obsessed with showcasing images of glamorous young women who are falling apart — sometimes seriously, even fatally.

Wolfe goes on to note how Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Marilyn Monroe, Anna Nicole Smith and Princess Diana are the women who dominate the headlines.

What’s most interesting here, though, is the way Wolfe traces this fascination far back into American history. In fact, Wolfe claims, this sexist tendency to shift the focus away from strong, capable women began deep in the 19th Century when, in order to combat a burgeoning women’s movement, the popularized female images were “those of women pale and weak with tuberculosis, those who died young and frail, who could barely raise themselves up from their languid sickbeds.”

Although Wolfe doesn’t go there, her thesis helps explain America’s addiction to reality shows.

If you take a look at the Kat Angus and Addi Stewart’s recent list in the Edmonton Journal of the Top 10 worst reality shows (inspired by the dreaded premiere of NBC’s “Age of Love” Monday night), it’s amazing to see how much of their worst-ness comes at the expense of women. From “The Swan” to “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” to “For Love or Money,” Angus and Stewart point out how these shows got all their mileage out of making women appear desperate, shrill or just weak.

Speaking of “Age of Love,” Jenn Pozner at Women in Media & News performed a brilliant step-by-step deconstruction of the first episode as she watched it. Pozner has previously written about how reality TV degrades women for Ms. Magazine. Within the first 10 minutes of this latest sad example, the show had, according to Pozner, “wracked up so many of the genre?s contrived cliches that if you were playing a reality TV drinking game, you?d be sloshed by minute fifteen.” She explains:

? in this ?experiment,? one man has all the agency while dozens of women in their 40s and their 20s are expected to fight amongst themselves like children for his attention

? single women over 40 are portrayed as pathetic, lovelorn losers (despite their accomplishments in life)

? women in their 20s are portrayed as sexy, nubile sirens (desirable as girlfriend material despite being depicted as ditzy and dumb; they even pose them against poles, get it?)

? the narrator promises that ?the claws will come out? as ?each week, you?ll see young verses old in a battle for love?

I myself tuned in for the first few minutes — but was so turned off and, frankly, bored by these well-worn sexist cliches that I couldn’t even convince the cultural critic inside of me to continue watching.

In light of Wolfe’s argument, though, Pozner’s close analysis provides damning evidence that — whether it be female celebrities or the “ordinary” women of reality TV — those cliches are still a dominant American ideology.