Following my encounter last weekend with MTV’s Jersey Shore, I woke up on Sunday surprisingly early and without anything to do for several hours. Reaching for the remote, I began flipping through the channels looking for something to hold my attention while my body struggled to wake up.

Enter Oxygen’s Bad Girls Club.

I cannot even begin to describe what this show is about as I couldn’t quite figure it out. As far as I can tell, the producers stick a dozen or so girls in a house and pump them full of booze night after night, hoping that drama will ensue. I’m not sure if the women are competing for something or simply just enjoying the free ride, but throughout the course of two episodes I saw two separate fistfights among the housemates. I suppose the series is like Jersey Shore but with an all female cast.

What surprised me most was not the show itself but the network it’s on: Oxygen.

In the same vein as Lifetime or WE tv, Oxygen bills itself as a television network for women. But while Lifetime’s programming alternates between empowering movies-of-the-week and soapy melodramas, Oxygen seems to have made a name for itself with over the top shows highlighting women with low self esteem.
In the past I have turned to Oxygen for its day-long America’s Next Top Model marathons, easing into the comfort that comes from watching Tyra Banks play puppet master as she puts 13 naive girls through the supposed trials and tribulations of the modeling industry. And frankly, although I recognize that show’s flaws and its perpetuation of unrealistic body types, the fact that it was shown nonstop on a “women’s” television network never phased me. But looking at Bad Girls Club, as well as the rest of Oxygen’s lineup (which includes Addicted to Beauty, a reality show about plastic surgery mania), it seems that Oxygen preys on an audience that is obsessed with body image while simultaneously ridiculing those women who mirror the image Oxygen reflects.

This kind of targeted networking is a tricky thing to navigate. Heterosexual men can tune into Spike TV to learn how to express “acceptable” forms of masculinity. LGBTQ folks turn to Logo (or Bravo) for queer programming with low production value. And the African American community has BET. Interestingly, all of these networks have been decried by members of their targeted communities for perpetuating stereotypes. However, with the exception of Spike TV, most of these networks seem to legitimately want to provide a service (and turn a profit) to their respective communities.

So what service is Oxygen providing?

I suppose singling out Oxygen among the women-oriented networks is a little unfair. Lifetime continues to use melodrama to draw in middle-aged housewives; while WE tv reinforces marriage as the cornerstone of every heterosexual woman’s life. But I suppose Oxygen troubles me the most since its target audience has clearly evolved to focus on young women and issues surrounding body image, sexuality, and self esteem. America’s Next Top Model and Addicted to Beauty reinforce what it means to be beautiful, while Bad Girls Club ridicules those who seemingly use their beauty as currency. And these are the best shows for women that Oxygen can come up with?

The network does attempt to balance these superficial reality shows with series like Snapped, which every week presents true stories of women who go off the deep end and try to murder someone. The lesson Oxygen ends up presenting is: if you’re not young and beautiful, you’re going to end up a deranged housewife. But I guess it’s a lesson every woman needs to learn at some time or another.