Today is the day to try a new flavor.

Being a young white woman in this day in age is not an easy thing. It's difficult to find our needs met, to find our interests addressed in the public eye. We're rarely represented in media and we have few role models to look up to. Every day is a struggle for the upper middle class caucasian female. Yet somehow we struggle and some of us persevere, to make life better for our daughters and granddaughters.

So it does not make me happy to see our kind take several steps back when we're unflatteringly portrayed in the media. It's hard enough finding examples of young white women on network television--forget about positive, strong roles. But Monday night I turned on the television to see the worst kind of outdated archetype paraded around during prime time.

I'm talking about "The Bachelor" here. So many of us are out there in the real life, struggling and we're being made a mockery of.

Oh sure. You may say it is harmless entertainment. That it might even be parody. But how many negative stereotypes are being reinforced here? I may walk down the street and hold my head high and do my job professionally, but behind their backs, the men in my office probably say, "I bet when she gets home she just squeals, and gets drunk, and hopes to marry a prince, and squeals some more, and flatirons her hair, and hopes for a red rose, and fights with other girls, and squeals."

I suppose one might say that we are empowering ourselves by taking control of this negative personification, making fun of it, saying "Hey, I might get excited over a free evening gown and struggle for one-on-one time with the Bachelor but I do it in irony," but I have a feeling that the women on the show are thinking this way.

We white females need to pay closer attention to how we're being represented on television. We're not just these women. Sometimes you can see us playing female doctors who are in love with male doctors, or lady cops who don't get taken seriously by criminals, or we're cooking--but we're cooking for ourselves, dammit.

Listen. Do I want millions of dollars in diamonds and frolic in Rome in front of television cameras and potentially maybe date a stranger who is some kind of royalty. OH MY GOD YES!!!! But I am also a professional. A scholar. A good citizen. A good cook and ironer. I am so much more than what is portrayed on television. In my next real-life rose ceremony, assuming I don't get spurned like a loser, I'm going to turn away my rose, even if it means packing my bags and going home.