How The Bachelor strips all dignity from women Jolene the hair stylist from the Shire has caused waves for snapping the rose of fellow contestant, Judy in episode one of The Bachelor. Courtesy Channel 10 Contestant Ali Oetjen, eliminated this week, with The Bachelor Sydney chiropractor Tim Robards / Picture: Channel 10 Source: Supplied GREAT news, girls! You can use that degree you attained after doing so well at school to give you an edge in that most worthy of Australian pursuits - snagging yourself a cardboard boyfriend on The Bachelor. If you haven't yet caught up with this show about love and dating in 2013 you're not too late. The finale is tonight. In the final "rose ceremony" chiropractor Tim Robards, a man who the show's producers have stripped of any semblance of a personality, will choose between "criminal lawyer" Anna and "model" Rochelle. One will get the ultimate prize: a man! The other goes home with our sympathy. My money's on the lawyer. She's the blonde one. For the honour of taking part in this public humiliation, Anna and Rochelle had to outwit, outlast and outflirt 23 other women who were all locked up in a house together to vie for the attention of one man and have their lack of self-esteem laid bare for our amusement. The field included an accountant, a finance manager, an emergency nurse, a doctor, a psychologist and a professional skateboarder. This is no Beauty And The Geek, where listed occupations include "Lara Bingle Lookalike" and "Shopaholic." Reality TV casting is a finely tuned science designed to scoop up the most extreme ends of the social spectrum, but if our 20-somethings are even remotely as insecure as those willing to subject themselves to taking part in The Bachelor, we're in trouble. According to a report by the COAG Reform Council on the status of women, we're now more likely to finish school than boys and outperform them in literacy at all ages, with "a higher proportion of women under 30 than men under 30 now attaining education qualifications at or above Certificate III level." Why, then, are we still being paid less and promoted less? "Graduate starting salaries are overall significantly lower for women than men ... In 2013, women's average weekly earnings were 17.5 per cent lower than men's," the COAG report says. Women are less likely to be in higher-level or leadership roles. Less than 3 per cent of ASX 500 companies are chaired by women, and 28.9 per cent of MPs are women. The truism goes: You can't be what you can't see. What our current crop of schoolgirls can see is professional women willing to demean themselves on TV for the one-in-25 chance of bagging a bloke - as if this, or 15 minutes of fame, will make them complete.