I didn't quite understand, but I felt the offense to my gender, and seethed with anger at my father for a few minutes. I was also offended for my gender. But after years of life experience, I was equally offended by its members. I knew the evil patriarchy hadn't forced the female contestants to enter this humiliating contest, or forced millions of women to watch. After 40 years of feminism, many women still expect men to show their intentions, and devotion, by paying for dates and presents, and still evaluate them as future providers for a family.
Girls still grow up thinking of work as an option, while boys know it as a necessity.
Conventional wisdom would have it that women have to think hard about their future spouses' earnings because of the earnings gap. My theory is that men have by and large eroticized freedom, while women have eroticized its absence. This applies to prostitution, where men pay for the freedom of closing the door on the selves they show, and to family life, where all too many men are able to walk away from supporting their children. Very few women would react well if a man asked their price, but many will casually boast of their boyfriend's expensive presents or recent promotion, or imply that a lover's income offsets other less stellar qualities. Not many men are proud of going to prostitutes, but even those who have never bought sex are apt to mutter that one way or another, men still pay for it.