Man dresses in drag to experience sexual harassment women receive daily and it’s eye-opening
Antoine in the In Our Shoes campaign video (YouTube)
A straight cisgender man went out in public dressed as a woman as part of a new campaign that aims to show men the sexual harassment women often face.
The campaign – called In Our Shoes – made a video of 23-year-old Antoine being dressed up in drag and walking around in public to see how men treated him.
Antoine says in the eye-opening video that he felt “vulnerable” going out as a woman – and that is no surprise considering the slew of sexualised comments he receives from men.
One man walks past him in the street and simply says: “Wow.” On another occasion, a man walking behind Antoine declares that he has a “great ass”.
Another man approaches him and asks him for his number, while another man tells him he is “turned on”.
In a bar, a man tells Antoine that his bangs make him look like he is in a “porno”. He is also approached by various other men in the video who tell him that he is beautiful or ask him how he is.
Antoine was shocked by the sexual harassment he received while presenting as a woman.
At the end of the video, Antoine says he was shocked by the extent of the targeted harassment he experienced while presenting as a woman.
“This kind of behaviour is quite shocking, really,” he says.
Antoine revealed in a second video from the campaign that he was inspired to take part because he had heard from female friends that they experience harassment in public.
I’m in the subway, holding a bar and a guy looks at me and says: ‘F**k, she’s beautiful!’ And he never stopped repeating this for five minutes and three or four stops.
“Very frequently friends come to me and say: ‘Today a guy has followed me in the street.’ Each time it touches me because I don’t think it’s fair.”
He also revealed that he was “often afraid” while taking part in the experiment.
The video has been heavily criticised by women on Twitter who pointed out that they could have just asked a woman to share her experiences.
“I’m in the subway, holding a bar and a guy looks at me and says: ‘F**k, she’s beautiful!’ And he never stopped repeating this for five minutes and three or four stops.”
Despite some good intentions, the video is being heavily criticised on Twitter, where many people are pointing out that the creators of the campaign could simply have asked women what it is like to be a woman in public places.
Trans woman Shon Faye commented: “You could just ask half the population.”
Other women echoed that sentiment.
Save the two hours and a film crew.
Just ask a woman!
— Karleigh Chardonnay Webb (@ChardonnayM) November 7, 2019
Um. Could they not have gotten … an actual… woman… for this ? Shaking https://t.co/ffTO1wi0uv— holly x (@hollyshortall) November 7, 2019
all this effort when you could have just asked women. speaks volumes— edie britt (@editbritt) November 7, 2019
Despite this, the experience appears to have at least impacted one person. Antoine said in the video that the experiment changed his perspective on “a woman’s day to day life”.
“As a man, you can’t notice everything. I have sometimes looked at girls in the eye for a bit too long. I have turned back thinking: ‘Yeah!’ That girl, she lives that 20, 30, 40 times a day.”
