The CW network recently premiered its latest reality venture, a series where scantily clad contestants compete against each other to become the next Pussycat Doll.

Although television schedules are littered with similarly intellectually-degrading reality programs, this show in particular claims to be, get this, a force for female empowerment.

When casting calls began, the show’s producers issued a desire for “diverse young women (ages 18 and over) from all walks of life to showcase female empowerment, self-discovery, personal transformation and their inner Pussycat Doll.”

This represents a growing trend of a societal confusion between sexual liberation and promiscuity, between female empowerment and female objectivity. Almost every example of “female empowerment” for young girls wears miniskirts and low-cut tops.

The Pussycat Dolls pride themselves on their feministic message, telling young girls that they too can be strong independent women. This, however, is coming from a group who began its career as a burlesque dance troupe.

In their defense, the addition of female empowerment to the band’s mission was most likely done by management, a fat guy with a comb over paid to think up ways to sell more records. Of course, the girls may be copying what was presented decades before.

Madonna rose to icon-status in the late eighties, ushering in an age of sexual openness and unapologetic sensuality. Madonna celebrated sex, turning her nose up at the notion that only men could be overtly sexual without being labeled as “easy.” Her barely-there stage presence was an in-your-face statement that required little translation.

The Dolls may be simply regurgitating the same lines Madonna preached years prior, but there is an important and unmistakable difference between these two chronologically separate phenomena.

Madonna represented a minority; she was peerless in the message she presented. She was one of the first and, at the time, the only entertainer dealing with female empowerment, at least in a sexual sense.

The Pussycat Dolls, in contrast, are by no means alone in their stance.

The world of entertainment has become overrun with drones dressed in see-through tops, all advertising the same strategy for empowerment.

Here lies the problem. Young girls have inherited an incredibly narrow scope through which they are allowed to view themselves. Girls can only be sexually liberated if they bare their midriffs; girls can only fight back with a little help from CGI effects.

Madonna was the alternative, not the rule. Sexual subtlety, something much hotter than any amount of exposed skin, has become a rare commodity in today’s world (champions of this include Ani DiFranco and Neko Case).

Of course, The Pussycat Dolls are not the sole reason that kids are having sex at absurdly young ages. There is, however, definite harm in presenting only one path to female empowerment, especially if that path involves wearing your underwear on the outside of your clothes.