in brief: the guardian turns everyday sexism back on men

Based on public encounters reported to them, The Guardian recently used scenarios from real women from the @EverydaySexism Twitter feed to turn the tables on sexist discourse.

Video Producer, Leah Green went undercover for the four minute video, in which she depicts the real-life situations, instead cat-calling or asking unsavoury questions of the men she bumps into on the street, in shops and even some who serve her at a bar.

Green even went so far as to yell out of her car window at the men she drove past, something I’m sure most women are familiar with. (After all, what is a short walk down to the local milk bar without a wolf whistle from a passing stranger?)

What is most hilarious – or disturbing, depending on your tolerance for this kind of thing – is the reactions some of the men have to her comments.

After cat-calling some tradies working on the side of the road, one turns to Green and says ‘you can’t speak to us like that’. Yeah, he’s right. We can’t, and we shouldn’t. And neither should they.

Another, who she has stopped on the sidewalk and asked back to her apartment, asks her if she is ‘okay’.

It’s not exactly a ground breaking project, no. But just one look at the @EverydaySexism Twitter feed is enough to make anyone angry at the injustice of these events happening to women on a daily basis.

Shining a light on them, like The Guardian has in their video, can hopefully show the men who actually do and say these things, that it is definitely not okay, and that it wouldn’t feel okay if we were to turn around and do it back to them.