One bro in a suit wants to remind the world that misogyny is alive and well.
Days after an investment management firm installed the “Fearless Girl” statue in front of The Charging Bull in downtown New York, one man decided it was time to hump the statue.
The lewd act was photographed by Alexis Kaloyanides and posted to social media, where it went viral. According to the picture’s caption, the man thrusted his hips in front of the statue as his friends watched.
“Almost as if out of central casting, some Wall Street finance broseph appeared and started humping the statue while his gross date rape-y friends laughed and cheered him on,” Kaloyanides wrote on Friday.
“He pretended to have sex with the image of a little girl,” she continued. “Douchebags like this are why we need feminism.”
The “Fearless Girl” is an act of political art by investment management firm State Street. The image of her staring down the bronze bull, a masculine and powerful symbol for Wall Street, is supposed to raise awareness of the need for gender diversity.
After it was installed on Tuesday, the statue quickly became a popular attraction, with women and little girls visiting the financial district just to pose next to it with their own confidence and power.
Then, with a few mimicked thrusts, one man in a suit attempted to wipe the statue’s symbolism away.
“He was gone within 20 seconds, but it just ruined the mood of the scene,” Kaloyanides told Inside Edition. “There were people talking about empowering children and women and for then to have this 20-something showing his entitlement, defiling the statue ... it was utterly revolting.”
In just two days, Kaloyanides’ photo of the man has been shared on Facebook more than 19,000 times.
“This is just further perpetuating a mentality of ‘boys will be boys,’ and that ‘it’s okay, it’s a joke, just brush it off,’” Kaloyanides told Inside Edition. “This young man likely has a mother, a sister perhaps, a girlfriend, a wife ― who knows? I’m getting tired of making excuses and laughing it off. I for one am not gonna laugh it off anymore.”
Just as the “Fearless Girl” statue represents female empowerment, the image of this man defiling it represents why we need feminism in the first place.