When The Daily Mail wanted to criticise BBC Three, shows like Snog Marry Avoid were held up as a shameless waste of the licence fee. Now, while such programmes have an element of the freak show, they do the job of catering to their young, female-centric viewership, and usually contain an empowering message. That said, theres an exception to every rule, and in this case that would be Hotter Than My Daughter. Hotter Than My Daughter was about putting women in their place. Across fourteen episodes that somebody felt worthy of commissioning, the shows monologue at femininity ran thusly: Middle aged woman in a cocktail dress? You look like a stripper. Wear a cardigan instead. Young woman who likes t-shirts? Stop dressing like a ten year old boy. Start dressing like the mannequins in Topshop. It was all presented breezily enough with plenty of footage of your mum on the razz, but theres no getting away from how dubious the basic premise was. Throughout, the mother and daughter relationship was constantly portrayed as fractious, and the solution as the capitalist fantasy of a Miss Selfridges gift voucher. No attempt was made to address potentially more serious issues dividing these women. Just as long as they ended up dressing age appropriately, everything was right with the fairer sex and the credits could roll. And you wonder- what problem could The Daily Mail possibly have had with any of that?!