Jennifer is a military wife and a mom...

I suppose that there are a lot of women out there that consider themselves, first and foremost, a wife and a mother.

On this week's How to Look Good Naked, Carson Kressley will be "making over" a woman named Jennifer that "lived a vivacious and out-going life until post-baby body woes rained on her parade." I will not watch the episode, nor have a ever watched the program (I saw the ad for it while watching reruns of Will and Grace..yeah, I still love that show), but something about this catchy tagline bothers me. TV is notorious for compacting information to 15 second sound bites... but what about Jennifer? This blurb that is supposed to wrap up Jennifer's life in one quick sentence only describes her in relation to others. Why can't the description of Jennifer describe... oh, I dunno...JENNIFER.

"Jennifer is an amateur body builder that has seen the Grateful Dead in concert
25 times and has a regrettable Tweety Bird tattoo on her left ankle."

"Jennifer is an avid model train collector and spends her weekends volunteering
at a homeless shelter."

So why does this bother me. Is it because the media does not do this to men?

On the website for NBC Nightly News, there is a 15 paragraph biography of Brian Williams - here's the last sentence of that bio:

"He and his wife, Jane Stoddard Williams, have two children."

And just to bring it a little closer to home, here's Lifetime TV's description of Carson Kressley:

"Accomplished stylist, breakout television star, equestrian, author and now fashion designer, Carson Kressley is out to make over the world."

Or maybe I'm upset because Lifetime, THE NETWORK FOR WOMEN, easily tosses aside the individuality of a woman in the hopes that portraying her as supportive and submissive somehow makes her more appealing to the masses? Gee, let's take a look at some of Lifetime's programming:

Army Wives
All The Good Ones Are Married
A Mother's Fight for Justice
For My Daughter's Honor
Secrets of an Undercover Wife

Okay, you get the picture.

So how about this:

"Jennifer works hard to raise a happy, well-adjusted child with her military husband."