U.S. women clearly not spoiled

It arrived innocuously, like most truly dangerous threats do: a mass-distributed e-mail with the subject line "A Russian wife can make you happy."

True enough. Certainly women of any nationality are capable of creating happiness.

But then it turned ugly.

"Russian Mail Order Brides," the e-mail went on. "Tired of dating spoiled American women? Russian women are unspoiled, devoted and grateful. Browse the free pictures they sent in! Let women come to you for a change."

The link to the free pictures didn't work, but I got the "picture," all right. The company behind this e-mail has figured American women out for the spoiled, ungrateful heathens we are!

Consider my two friends who had to set deadlines to force their long-term fiances to marry them. Boy, did they ever feel like delicate princesses when they finally dragged their prizes to the local courthouse.

When it comes time to cook and do laundry at my house, I just sit on the couch and eat bonbons while the servants work around me. Then my husband hands me a roll of $100 bills and it's off to the masseuse before my manicure and, finally, bedtime.

Seriously, the only men who think American women are spoiled are ones so undesirable that they are forced to pay for wives over the Internet. That company should try marketing to some of the jerks I dated.

If you think American women are spoiled, look at the phenomenal success of "The Bachelor" to see the great lengths they will go through to get a man to marry them.

I didn't get to see it until I sat with my ailing grandmother at the hospital last week during the show's finale. I was hooked in an instant. ("Heidi, I need my medication," Grammy said. "Uh, I'm trying to watch TV here," I replied.)

Aaron from Springfield, Mo. -- obviously great-looking but apparently without a whole lot of smarts or sparkling conversation -- got to make out with 25 women and then pick the one he considered most desirable. Helene hung on to the very end, knowing that Aaron was somewhere making out with other women.

And then, the bacteria from Brooke's tongue barely cleared out of his mouth, Aaron proposed to Helene, who accepted graciously.

I think the worst part was watching Aaron's mother meet her two potential daughters-in-law. Instead of hugging them and trying to help her son decide, any woman with an ounce of feminism in her body would have walked right up to those candidates, shaken them severely and yelled, "Do you understand the whole nation is watching you two humiliate yourselves? Get out of here and find a man who isn't going to decide based on who rubs his thigh better."

Exactly how humiliated are American women willing to be to snag a man? If you really want to know, you should borrow some videotapes of "Looking for Love: Bachelorettes in Alaska," another FOX show. This one ended with women wearing luxurious wedding gowns and white coats, shivering in the snow on the edge of a lake, waiting for men to land in a plane, get out and propose.

A couple of the women got their wishes, but others stood there empty-handed as the plane took off for the wild blue yonder.

Makes one wonder what has happened for American women to value themselves so little. Yes, Russian women have suffered centuries of harsh dictatorships and then decades of communism.

But what about the way we've suffered at the hands of Monday Night Football and the invention of the La-Z-Boy recliner? That stuff can take its toll on a girl.

Heidi Hall is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.