Lisa Mayoh: My heart hurt to watch beautiful, strong women be put down by men on TV

Women deserve better than the outdated vitriol spewing from our TV screens, because it’s undoing all the progress we’ve fought for, writes Lisa Mayoh.

A perpetually single man looking for love given pictures of real life humans – and putting the women down, one by one.

I switched on the TV the other night to see a 30-something man combing through women’s pictures, ranking them, judging them for what they look like – some not pretty enough, some not skinny enough, some not “caucasian enough” for his liking.

Welcome to the joys of prime time television in Australia in 2025.

A perpetually single man looking for love. A teacher, no less. Given pictures of real life humans, part of a social experiment juggernaut to help people find love – and putting the women down, one by one.

One had “crazy eyes”. One had a “lazy eye”. Another was too old, while one knows she’s pretty, he spits – and that one? Her face screams she would “stab you in your sleep”. You would have seen it – millions of people did. You all know which show I’m talking about so I’m not even going to name it because it doesn’t deserve this paper’s free publicity. But what we were all exposed to was vile.

It made my heart hurt to watch a group of beautiful, strong, hugely vulnerable women be put down by men who had no right to do so.

It made my heart hurt to watch a group of beautiful, strong, hugely vulnerable women be put down by men who had no right to do so.

Imagine if someone did that to your daughter? Your sister? Your mother? Imagine if your son did that to a woman?

It’s something we are going to look back on in years to come when our children question how on earth it was allowed to air on TV at all. Surely cancel culture can have a crack at this one? Men nitpicking women for what they look at. Ranking, criticising, judging. And us sitting back and letting them, in the name of entertainment? In no way, shape or form is any of this OK.

And yet it happens. And it happens because we let it. Women are left weak and powerless at the hands of men who seal their fate based on looks. Really? I bet the single life is looking a whole lot better for those women now.

And then we forget. We shrug it off. We don’t make a fuss, it’s just a show, right? Then as we inch towards International Women’s Day next month, all the feel-good stories filter through about how strong and capable us women folk are, and we’ll feel better again.

But that’s not good enough. The men we saw criticise, control, and condescend should be ashamed – actually mortified – by their behaviour.

We can only hope the good women of the world forgive their stupidity and forge ahead in our quest for – not even equality – for normality. For sanity.

Just like those women in the hot seat, we all deserve better than the outdated vitriol spewing from our TV screens, because it’s undoing all the progress we’ve fought for – for us, and for our kids.

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