148. He’s punching!! Pressures of the male gaze

Have you ever heard the phrase “He’s punching above his weight” and stopped to think about what it really means? It’s often said as a joke, but underneath it lies a deeper issue—the idea that a woman’s worth is defined by how she looks, while a man’s worth is measured by his success, humour, or status.

In this episode, we dive into the impact of the male gaze and the unrealistic pressures placed on women to be seen as ‘attractive enough.’ We explore how these outdated ideas shape relationships, self-worth, and body image—and, most importantly, how we can start to break free from them.

I'm talking about:
✅ Why the phrase “He’s punching” is more damaging than it seems
✅ How media, dating culture, and social norms reinforce the male gaze
✅ The emotional impact of feeling like you have to ‘maintain’ your attractiveness
✅ How to reclaim your body and self-worth from external validation
✅ Ways to challenge and shut down these outdated ideas when you hear them

Also, there's an update on my coaching prices. I've DROPPED them! Take a look at the "work with me" link below.

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Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the intuitive eating and body positivity podcast. I'm Terri and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity and health at every size and shaking off weight stigma, diet culture and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies. Good day to you. How are you? I am a little better than I was when I recorded last week. My throat is still a little croaky, but I feel better. I feel better than I did. Hope you're good. Hope you're very, very well. Before I get into this episode, let me tell you about something that I've updated. Now, if you're on my email list, you will have received an email about this last week, but I wanted to update you here as well. I have updated my coaching prices. Now I feel this is important to tell you because I've decreased, reduced, made lower my coaching prices. My prices were set a good while ago and I've struggled with it a little bit. I'm one of those business people that doesn't really like to charge much because I want to just give everything to everybody for next to nothing. I am one of those people. I do not like charging ridiculous prices. I don't think that's fair on the people that need the services, but also I know that you have to charge, right? You have to charge, otherwise a business is not a business if you're not making money. Then it just becomes a charity that's also not generating any money. just giving stuff away and this is a business so I have to charge some money for my services but I was a bit uncomfortable with prices that I'd set them up and I thought sit with them for a little bit and see how they feel and so they've been there and they've been there and they've been there but they just don't feel right to me they didn't feel aligned so I've actually reduced my coaching prices The six month package is now massively reduced. It's the same support, same transformation for you, just a much more accessible price. And there's still the option to pay in installments if that's better for you. And also, you can now book a single coaching session. So, you've just got a package or a single session now. And those single sessions are half the cost of the previous single session options that I used to offer you. And they are perfect if you need a one-off deep dive rather than a full package of support. And I thought that was important to tell you because if you've gone onto my website before and you've had a look and you'd really like to work with me, but you were looking at the prices thinking, oh, it's a little bit too much of a stretch for me. I don't think I can manage it. I don't think I can justify it. Well, I wanted to let you know that I've reduced them because this might make it accessible for you. So, if you go onto my website now, the link's in the show notes, go onto my website and have a little look, click on work with me in the menu, and you'll see the three options, there's basically three options now. There's the membership, the price of the membership has stayed the same, but there's the membership, there is a single session of support, and there is a package of coaching. And the prices are lower. Now, if you are, as I said, on my email list, you will have got an email last week. That email had the right link in it, but when you click through it, the tech gremlins were in there, and the website wasn't showing the updated page. So if you're thinking, well, I've heard this message, Terry, I read it last week, but when I went there, your prices were still very expensive. Well, that is not my fault. The tech, the little tech gremlins were in my site, and I'd updated everything. I'd updated the page, I'd updated all the pricing, and it wasn't showing. So when the email went out, the link was right, but the updates weren't showing when you clicked on it. So now, if you do want to have a look, click on my website. It is terrypew.com. Easy peasy. Terrypew.com. Got to work with me in the menu, but the links in the show notes anyway. have a look at the new prices because it might now mean that coaching is accessible to you and that would be fabulous and if you don't know whether coaching is right for you and you don't know what it means or what a session looks like i mean there's lots of faqs there's a little faq section on the page so you can have a look at that but you can also book a call with me just book a 30 minute free chat with me if you want that links in the show notes as well but just book a free 30 minutes with me and we'll have a talk about whether it's the right option for you it would be fabulous to speak to you and it would be even better if that I can now work with you and it's now at a price that you can feel happy paying So, just to let you know about that. What else is going on business-wise to tell you about? Don't know. Let's just leave it there for now, shall we? Hmm, yes. Now, I've been wandering around looking with my middle-aged mum eyes. Middle-age. Now, if you're middle-age, do you think of yourself as middle-age? I don't. Isn't it a weird concept? Isn't it a funny label? That's not the actual point of this episode, but I'm just thinking about it now I'm talking to you. I've never really considered myself middle-aged, because for me, that term comes with a bit of fuddy-duddiness. But I am technically middle-aged, because I've probably lived about half my life. What a weird concept, though. Anyway, anyway, I've been looking with my middle-aged mum eyes. And thinking, the things that girls wear, young girls wear, to attract males, or is it even to attract males? But you look at the way that girls dress, and just for casual, and you look at the way they dress when they go out in the evening, Why do we dress the way we dress when we go out? Now, I might come on to this another time because I'm actually gonna be chatting with a personal stylist. She is fabulous, you are gonna love her. But I was, yeah, I might come back to that rationale in that episode. But I was thinking, typically a young girl, oh God, this sounds like stereotyping, so bear with me, you'll see where it's going. Typically a young girl will dress herself up, accentuate her features, her curves, her body, will do her hair and her makeup, all that sort of stuff. Now whether she does that in the daytime, for casual life, going to work, that sort of thing, maybe, maybe not. But quite often if you're going out in the evening as a young girl, and I say young girl, you know like, teens, twenties maybe, maybe even thirties, I don't know. There is the chance that you dress yourself up, right? To go out and have a good night out. Even if you're just going out with the girls and you've got no intention of attracting a male counterpart, you dress up. Make yourself feel good. I vaguely remember those days. I vaguely remember getting dressed up, Short skirts, little tops, you know, all that sort of thing. I had to forget to do that when I was younger. Not so much now. Those clothes would not look the same on me anymore. But that's okay. However, I do vaguely remember those days where I used to get really dressed up to go out and I know that a large part of it in my single years were, how do I look to men? How do I look to the other boys that are out? Am I going to attract a bit of a snog tonight? You know, that sort of thing. I thought nothing of it, obviously, because that's what you do when you're that age. And there's genuinely nothing wrong with that. Absolutely dress up and make yourself feel awesome, whatever your age. This is not a judgment of people who get dressed up to go out, right? I'm all for that. However, The fact that we get dressed up to make ourselves feel good, to attract a partner, or just to get a bit of attention, well, there's nothing wrong with that either. My issue is the way that it's looked back upon by the men, if that makes sense. And what if you do happen to be typically beautiful? What if you don't need to dress yourself up that much to attract male attention? That's not your fault. If you look the way you look, you look the way you look. And if that attracts male attention, then that's just the way it is, right? There is no criticism on the women for attracting male attention here. That is not the point of this episode. But if you do naturally attract male attention, there can be weird comments thrown around So for example, how many times have you heard men, or even women, say to other people, when they're referring to a couple, where the woman is typically quite beautiful, he's punching above his weight, he's punching above his weight. Meaning, how the hell did he get a looker like her? How did he end up with an absolute stunner of a woman like her? And I'm sure you're still thinking, such a compliment. So nice to know that you're appreciated for how beautiful you are. And that your husband, partner, whoever, maybe doesn't, not doesn't deserve to be with you, but You know, God, how did he end up with somebody as incredible as you? Kind of thing. You know what I mean? Maybe you've even said it yourself, thinking it was a bit of harmless banter. You know, how would this average man be dating such a beautiful woman? We do it with our friends, don't we? Yeah, my friend is the bee's knees. She's so beautiful. Her boyfriend is punching above his weight with her. How did he ever bag her? You know, that kind of thing. But I really would like us to take a minute to pause and think about what that phrase really means. Because at its core, it's reinforcing this troubling belief that a woman's worth is measured by her looks and a man's worth is measured by everything but his looks. Nobody ever thinks about the woman in the terms of Oh, she's got this high-flying executive job. She's super intelligent. You wouldn't believe what she can do with a spreadsheet. Do you know what degrees she's got? She is so, so intelligent. She is the best mother I have ever come across. She is incredibly supportive as a partner. All these lovely qualities that you would maybe like to be known for. Nobody ever says all that and then says, he's really punching above his weight with her. That phrase is only ever used with regards to looks. Yet the man, well, His worth is measured by everything but his looks. And worst of all, it piles on even more pressure onto the women to constantly be that attractive, as if it's our greatest achievement in life. So we need to break free from that. We need to reframe this. We need to change the narrative here. But this isn't new, right? This is not new. Historically, a woman's desirability determined her marriage prospects, her security, her social value. And we like to think, don't we, that we've moved past these kind of outdated ideals. But we haven't, because movies and TVs, TVs? Movies and TV programs, I mean, reinforce that pattern all the time. How often do you see a really ordinary looking man paired up with a really beautiful woman on TV? It's never the other way around. He's funny and successful and charming, so he really deserves her. Meanwhile, if the woman isn't conventionally attractive, well, she'd better have an exceptional personality to make up for it. And even then, she's probably playing the quirky best friend rather than the love interest, isn't she? From dating apps to social media, we are constantly bombarded with the message that men choose and women compete to be chosen. And the pressure, again, is exhausting. I guess it's easy to laugh off. A phrase like, he's punching. It's easy to laugh off. It's easy to joke about. On the surface, we don't think it's problematic. But the effects of it actually run deeper than you realize, I think. For women, it fuels the fear that you must maintain your attractiveness or you risk losing your value. And not just in the eyes of society, but in your relationships. It's that voice, you know, the voice in the back of your head that says, if I gain weight, will he still find me attractive? If I stop wearing makeup, will people think I've let myself go? I've changed so much over the years. What will people think about me? For men, it reinforces the idea that their self-worth isn't linked to their looks, which might sound like a privilege, until you realise that that's rooted in the assumption that men don't need to be beautiful, because beauty is a woman's job. It reduces relationships to a game of status, where dating an attractive woman boosts a man's social standing. We've all heard the terms, haven't we? Trophy wife. He's got a beautiful woman on his arm. It's all about this man achieving this beautiful woman. It warps how we view relationships entirely. And we don't see the couple as two separate individual people who love and respect each other. Instead, we judge them based on whether one person is too attractive for the other. And that is a ridiculous way to measure love, isn't it? Because that's what we're talking about. If it's a partnership, if it's a couple, if these people want to be together, why are we measuring that on how attractive she is compared to him or just how attractive she is and whether he deserves to be in a relationship with her? It's so strange, isn't it, when you start to think about it like that? So recognizing this is the first step, but then we have to try and unlearn all these ingrained ideas. So how do we stop measuring our worth through this external validation, and how do we start valuing ourselves for who we are and not just how we look? Well, I think we have to redefine attractiveness. You have to stop seeing it as an aesthetic thing. It's not something to look at. per se, as something to see within somebody. So beauty isn't a fixed standard, right? It certainly shouldn't be dictated by these ideas about what's desirable. So instead of asking, do I look good enough? The question could be, do I feel good in myself? Cause that confidence just shines out, doesn't it? How many people do you know where when they walk into a room everybody loves to see them? They light up a room. They bring a bit of personality. Maybe you're thinking, I wish I could be like them. I wish I could be that confident. I wish I could walk into a room as confidently as they do. I wish I could just mix in these social circles. I wish I could just talk to people effortlessly. All this sort of thing. There's lots of reasons why you might want to be like somebody else. And that is way more powerful than any kind of beauty ideal of what you look like. And you don't have to perform beauty for anybody. If you love wearing makeup, great. If you prefer bare faced, that's great too. If you like to dress yourself up in tight fitting clothes that accentuate different parts of your body and they're bright and they're colourful and they draw attention, awesome, you do you. But if that is not for you, if you would rather be more modest and conservative in the way you dress, then that is good for you too. The goal isn't to reject these traditional beauty practices, but to make sure that you're doing them because you want to, not because you feel that you have to. Does that make sense? Another good question is to ask yourself, who am I really doing this for? So if you're putting makeup on, who are you doing that for? Is it for you because it makes you feel good? Is it for other people because you're worried about the judgment? the clothes that you wear, the food that you eat, the way that you behave, all of this sort of stuff. Who are you doing that for? That's a really, really powerful question because it will make you re-evaluate, I think, what you're doing and how you're behaving. So if the answer that question is not yourself, it might be time to re-evaluate it. And maybe that means challenging the pressure to keep up appearances in your relationship. Maybe it does mean letting go of the idea that your partner's attraction is the most important thing. Maybe it's as simple as choosing to dress for your own joy rather than dressing to be seen, you know, like really seen by people. Your body is not this product to be maintained for public approval, right? It's not there for the approval of your partner. It is yours. It is yours to nourish. It is yours to move. It is yours to dress how you want to dress it. It is yours to celebrate on your own terms when you feel like it. And I know, I know that relationships, it brings that element of, we all want our partner to find us attractive, right? We do. And that does keep it a relationship, I guess. I know not all relationships have to be very physical, you know, like intimately physical, but you do want your partner to to like what they look at i guess because then if you don't have that attraction it's possibly just a friendship maybe i don't know that is probably a conversation for another day but it's just putting this stuff into perspective You cannot be dressing yourself the way you dress yourself or presenting yourself the way you present yourself solely to keep a partner interested in you. Do you see what I mean there? There's a difference between wanting your partner to be attracted to you and find you a, you know, to be a beautiful looking person, but that shouldn't be the only reason you're doing this and dressing the way you are and, you know, putting makeup on and all that sort of stuff. A relationship is mutual, right? You're not a prize to be won. The idea that a man must deserve a beautiful woman suggests that women are something to be earned, rather than equal partners in this relationship. But love is not transactional, this is it, isn't it? Love is not a transaction. It's not, yeah, it's not to be earned. It's care, it's mutual care, it's mutual respect, it's mutual connection. So if you've ever been told that your partner is punching, can you consider how that makes you feel? Does it reduce you to just your appearance? Does it make you question whether you're expected to stay beautiful, to justify your partner's good luck in securing you as his partner? A relationship should be about who you are together, not how you measure up to him for other people to judge. And if you are with somebody who truly loves you, they will never see your worth as something that fluctuates as your dress size does, or your makeup routine does, or the numbers on the scales do. We have to start calling this out when we hear lines like, He's punching. You've got to start saying something. It's really derogatory actually. I know it's meant as a compliment on the woman, but it's really derogatory. So the next time that somebody says he's punching above his weight, can you push back on that? Can you ask, why do we assume that one person is more deserving than the other? Can you just reframe the conversation and say, they seem really happy together. They're really good together. I think they look like a great couple. You can even use, you know, the word look, because there's nothing wrong with a couple looking good together. Because when you mean it as they look great together, they obviously make each other happy. They obviously bring out the best in each other. They obviously support each other. You can see that looking at a couple. As long as you're not saying they look good together, meaning, you know when people say that two celebrities look good together. He's really attractive, she's really attractive. They're this perfectly matched height and they just both compliment each other beautifully, aesthetically. That's not the way we're intending this. We're just acknowledging how good two people can look together in a partnership. And when you do call people out on these things, It's a very small shift and it doesn't need to be a great big conversation, but the more we start to reject these phrases, the more we start to correct people, even if they don't realize they're being corrected, the more we start sowing the seed that these things are not okay to say, then the more we challenge the culture that created them. So these pressures of the male gaze are not just about how women look. They shape how we feel about ourselves, how we behave, how we experience relationships. And it's got to stop, right? We don't have to accept that. We don't have to, as women, be controlled, judged, shaped, changed because of the way a man might see us. We can define our beauty other ways. We can define our worth other ways. We can value our relationships other ways. And we can choose to stop seeing ourselves through the lens of what's desirable to other people. So next time you hear something like, he's punching, remember you are not someone's trophy. Love is not a competition. And yeah, let's start calling it out, shall we? That was my little soapbox moment for the week. I love this when I come and talk to you on the podcast because I just get to get it all out my system. I get to just vent it. I just sit here and I switch the mic on and away I go. I just Yeah, I just open my mouth and it all comes out. And it's good because this is what we have to do, right? We have to talk about these things. And if that is me, sitting at a mic, at a desk, in my office, on my own, saying these things so that you can hear them, brilliant. If these then go on to be other conversations, Well that's brilliant too because if I've triggered something that you then go and talk about or that you use in future in your conversations, then I'm really happy because that's my job being done well here. I would really love it if you would share this episode on your social media. I will be posting, you'll probably find it by the time you listen to this, if you go look at my socials, if you go to Go to Instagram or LinkedIn because that's where I'm hanging out at the moment. If you go to either of those places, find the post and just share it. So if you go to Instagram, I'd love you to share it on your stories, for example, or repost it to your grid. That would be really, really great. because I think it's important that these things become talking points for people. So this is a really good talking point this week, I think. Some weeks I come and I'm like, let me help you with your food stuff. And other days I'm, let me help you with your body confidence. And then other days, I like to just come here and sow some seeds of thought. And I feel like this is one of those episodes. So give it a share, tag me in so that I can thank you. And hopefully we can start some other people thinking about these things in a different way. That'd be great, wouldn't it? Okay, lovely to have spoken to you again this week. Drop me a message, let me know, as always, if you've got any thoughts. And then I'll come talk to you again next week. Bye bye.