The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 4: The Princess & the Patriarchy

This week, NYC’s Snowmaggedon allowed for totally unfettered, cozy watching of The Bachelor live on Monday night, and OMG, this week’s episode was a feminist Bachelor recapper’s dream/nightmare.

You know what’s the best? Putting up a tent while wearing only a bikini.

Let’s start with the group date. The date card said “let’s do what feels natural,” which spurred highly philosophical conversation addressing what “nature” is anyway. “What does he mean by natural?” one womyn asked. “Natural beauty?” pondered another. And Mackenzie, in fully mascaraed and eyelinered hypocrisy, said right to the camera, “most of these girls aren’t very natural in the way they look.” Thank goddess though, no one was forced to not wear makeup, and instead they just were brought to a lake, where they spent the night camping. Funny Canadian Kaitlyn took off her bikini bottom and jumped in the water, and Hot Virgin Ashley took off her top. Beautiful Widow Kelsey was not having it—she called the whole experience “a date for bimbos,” and continually dissed the whole camping experience, brattily calling the lake a “hellhole” and claiming that it doesn’t compare to her native state’s Lake Michigan. Then she gets stung by a bee, and the camera panned down to her incredibly wide thigh gap.

Around the campfire at night, Mackenzie asked the other ladiesssszzzz if they believe in aliens—her second mention of extraterrestrial life in four episodes. Several points for Mackenzie. Kaitlyn was really into making fun of Ashley S., which is mean. Ashley S. was in full spacey/drunk/whatever her deal is form, and had an otherworldly talk with Chris about all the best things—how the moon makes her feel small, how she knows he’s a Scorpio but doesn’t care, and how she “loves him.” Chris is weirded out, obviously. Oh and at one point, he jumps out from the woods wearing a scary mask and wielding what my feminist boyfriend Matt says was an axe but I cannot confirm because I was staring into my ice cream sundae. In either case, inappropriate. Fuck that guy, fuck all guys who think it’s a funny joke to scare a group of woman by wielding a hilarious axe at them. I can’t believe these women are still considering him. He gives the rose to Kaitlyn, and she accepts it.

Okay, so Hot Virgin Ashley is obsessed with her own virginity on this episode. First, she sneaks into Chris’s tent because she wants him to know that, despite how it might appear, she is a virgin and not a whore. She wakes him up to tell him “I’ve never had a boyfriend” and “I am freakin’ innocent,” and Farmer Chris is like, are you talking to me I’m sleeping. She leaves his tent feeling vindicated. (Let us also note that the first episode’s season previews suggested that Farmer Chris engaged in some sensual love act with a womyn in this very tent scene, but we now know that this was just masterful editing trickery, and that the farmer moans of pleasure that they played did not actually take place during this scene.)

“Hey Chris, isn’t it weird how the social construct of virginity is used to control women’s sexuality and determine their self-worth? I think so too.”

Meanwhile, back at the mansh, Chris’s super-smart and funny sisters have shown up to choose who goes on the one-on-one date. Britt tells them she thinks she’s a frontrunner, Carly tells them men aren’t nice to her and cries and says “I want him to be like my grandpa” (jubilant lolz), Jade impresses them mightily with the fact that she’s a model and launched her own organic makeup company (“very cool!” the sisters exclaim. Also ew you guys, why do we put poison on our faces every day in the name of patriarchy. I meant to start using all-natural beauty products like years ago.). The cool, popular sisters choose Jade, and she gets to dress up like Cinderella for a terrible Cinderella-themed date with maje product placement for some new live-action Cinderella movie: “Choose the dress that makes you feel like a princess,” the stylist tells her, and, “You get to keep the diamond earrings by Neil Lane.” Fucking ew. The Bachelor franchise would have us believe that all women are interested in feeling like “princesses,” and fantasize about “fairytales,” and use the phrase “Prince Charming.” But I don’t know any women like this. The women I know say things like, “I will never wear a blood diamond,” and  “I fantasize about complex, beautiful, unexpected things,” and “why are you talking to me about princesses? I need to get back to my job.” But The Bachelor would like you to forget that women have jobs and smart brains and Master’s degrees and stuff, so instead we have Ashley S., who says, “all I want to do is go on a date and dress up like a princess,” and tells us she’s obsessed with Disney princesses and brought a dress specifically with a princess-themed date in mind. She puts it on and eats corn on the cob in it. And the other women make fun of her, hooray feminism.

Cinderella fantasies = not actually a thing

On Jade’s date, Farmer Chris is impressed by her “inner and outer beauty,” and calls her “the girl next door.” They talk about how both of them were engaged when they were younger, which is sort of refreshing given all the much-younger women Chris has been hangin’ out with. Farmer Chris gives her the rose, duh, then they dance in front of a screen that’s playing the Cinderella movie, and Jade leaves when the clock strikes midnight.

On to the next group date, wherein the ladiesssszzzzzttttthhhh (Britt, Jillian, Carly, Whitney maybe, and several other nondescript blondes) wear wedding dresses to compete in yet another obstacle course that involves running through mud. Oh wait and they’re supposed to be in San Francisco, but I definitely do not believe that. Jillian kills it, and wins by a landslide. Remember, she lifts weights constantly and is rumored to have hairy buttcheeks and is perennially body-shamed by a black bar covering her ass? The shaming continues, both subtly (the girls talk shit about her winning, as if she had done something wrong) and not-so-subtly (nondescript blonde tells the camera, “Jillian should be wearing a tuxedo, not a dress… is her [bleep] bigger than Chris’s?”), ‘cause of course, women who do anything on an obstacle course except literally beg Farmer Chris to save them (this happens) are unfeminine to the point of having their gender policed. Winner Jillian goes on a dinner date with Chris, where he decides that he hates her for talking too much (“women with opinions?” Farmer Chris scoffs, “hold on while I lose my lunch”), and sends her home. As she leaves, she shames herself for not being “more vulnerable.”

Jillian races past acceptable standards for Bachelor femininity

At the cocktail party, Megan blindfolds Chris and makes him do a taste test, and she’s quite pleased with herself for coming up with this. Ashley wants to be EXTRA SURE that Chris knows she’s a virgin and therefore “wife material,” so she insists on telling him even more overtly. Chris says he respects her decision to wait for the right person, and says “if anything I respect her more.” OMG virgin/whore binary. Ashley then goes into a meltdown over the fact that Chris didn’t try to make out with her after she announced that she was a virgin (but that would have been creepy though?), worried now that Chris “respects her too much.” Ewww why is our culture so fucked up. Oh also, somewhere along the way Becca mentions that she is also a virgin, and is just like, “yeah NBD, it’s just a choice I made,” which confuses and dismays Ashley further.

“My internalized misogyny informs my understanding of ‘the right reasons…'”

Britt corners Chris to ask him why he’s giving roses to girls who she thinks don’t wear enough clothes, and he stammers about how he has so much integrity, then tells the whole group that if they doubt his intentions, they’re welcome to leave. Power move, Chris. One point for good communication. Britt is worried that Farmer Chris hates her, but he keeps her around because she’s a beautiful pixie with masterfully executed smoky winged eye makeup, and sends home Juelia, Ashley S., and a nondescript brunette instead.

Next week: Hot air balloons! Chris has sex with someone! Kelsey has a panic attack! I can’t hardly wait.