Camille Grammer & Other Real Housewives Castmembers Are Nothing But Middle Aged "Mean Girls"

On an episode of last season's The Real Housewives of New York City, Alex McCord referenced Tina Fey's hit movie Mean Girls when she told her 47 year-old castmate Jill Zarin "You are a mean girl!" Sadly, like many of the Housewives, "mean" accurately described the behavior of Jill and that of several Real Housewives.

Because The Housewives are often portrayed in a negative light, audience members can easily tear these women down. The "Real Housewives" shows reduce a woman’s role to that of 'gold-digging trophy wife.'

With women outnumbering men in universities, climbing the corporate ladder, and shattering the glass ceiling, Bravo continues to generate misleading series after series about women who have attained wealth by spreading their legs for wealthy - sometimes married (Kim Zolciak), and other times wealthy and elderly (Gretchen Rossi) - men, all the while whining about other women that they don’t associate with when the cameras aren’t rolling?!

Although Camille Grammer embodies a middle aged "mean girl," virtually all of the women on Bravo's Housewives series are catty, superficial b!tches that thrive on a social hierarchy.

On each contrived series, castmembers meet up for lunch, dinner, events, parties and trips. When all of the women congregate, they never get along. Whenever a castmember is not present - the other women morph into “mean girls” by gossiping incessantly about the missing party.

In reality, each Housewife has several female friends who are not a part of these shows. Female friends of Housewives castmembers appear at social functions in support of their reality TV friend, proving that these women actually DO get along with other women. Conversely, these shows fail to give more than a cameo’s worth of air time to the healthy female-to-female friendships that the stars have built and nurtured.

Arguably the most offensive aspect of these shows is how they trivialize the challenging role of raising children. Family scenes that air often feature mothers spoiling their children, while husbands are often portrayed as the voice of reason, rescuing their sexy damsel in distress wives and keeping their children in line. Although some Housewives have nannies, these mothers have devoted countless hours to raising their children and making positive contributions in their lives; not to mention that, HELLO, they have all given the gift of life!

Unlike the characters of Mean Girls, the Housewives experience no character arc and no resolution is provided during each season finale. In fact, the women argue throughout each reunion show because they're strategically asked offensive questions.

Instead of focusing on such degrading, sexist stereotypes, The Housewives series could focus on the challenges of castmembers balancing raising children, working on their marriages or dating lives, and managing their thriving careers and charity organizations. Each series features women with big personalities who could easily entertain the masses minus the catfights.

This is not the kind of inspiration that Fey was going for with her lighthearted, redeeming work of fiction. Unfortunately Bravo has also created a work of fiction, however this one thrives on clever editing and harmful stereotypes; but the network won’t tell its viewers that because maybe then The Real Housewives shows would no longer be seen as harmless "entertainment."