There are few images more, well, “bullish” than the iconic charging bull statue in Manhattan’s Bowling Green Park. It’s always reminded me of money, power and some major league testosterone.
But when a statue of a little girl facing off against the bull, hands on her hips, appeared on the eve of International Women’s Day, I was awestruck.
I could not have imagined a better symbol for feminism: a little girl fearlessly facing that charging mass of capitalism.
I loved her so much, I gave her a name; Glory, for Gloria Steinem.
Glory was the perfect image for a day set aside to celebrate and honor pioneering women worldwide.
I imagined Glory yelling out to the bull the powerful words of Hillary Clinton, “Women’s rights are human rights,” followed by “Bug off, buddy!”
My friend Samantha summed it up: “Took some little bronze girl to do what no puppet politician had the courage for.”
The image of that defiant little girl seemed to be everywhere on women’s day: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. She was our new SHERO, a real “Nasty Woman,” a tiny Norma Rae, a budding Susan B. Anthony.
I felt proud of her.
Then a designer named Alexis Kaloyanides snapped a picture of a suited Wall Street machismo pretending to hump Glory, to the delight of his laughing friends.
Alexis posted the photo on social media with this caption. “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. He pretended to have sex with the image of a little girl. Douchebags like this are why we need feminism.”
It went viral.
I hope somebody awarded Alexis a pink “pussyhat” as a medal of honor.
The picture that appeared on my Facebook on Women’s Day showed someone had clearly already knitted one for Glory.
I have to say, pink is definitely her color.
Just as I could not have imagined a better symbol for the struggle of women’s rights than Glory, our fearless little girl. I could not have imagined a more apt symbol for sexism, bigotry, misogyny and “rape culture” than that Wall Street idiot and his moronic friends.
In a country which now has a president who has bragged that his celebrity and money means he can grab women by their genitalia whether they like it or not the violation of Glory means a lot more than a bad joke.
“It’s just locker room talk,” that’s what we heard on the news in regard to the vulgar bragging of the man who would win the electoral vote to become president despite his behavior.
But attacking a woman’s freedom was a lot more than locker room talk for him.
Just two days after the January 21st women’s march, the hugest one day protest in history, which started with a march on Washington then spread out to millions of women (and the men who support them) across the United States and around the world, the 45th president, decided to reinstate the “global gag rule”.
Word to the wise anything called a “gag rule” is probably not going to be good for women.
The gag rule blocks the United States from funding international, non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, or referrals or fight for the rights for women to choose.
It forces health organizations to choose between receiving US funding to help fight diseases like AIDS or providing family planning.
It’s like stepping back in time, way back, decades back.
That the 45th president of the United States sat there smugly signing away the funding for the reproductive health and welfare of women worldwide as 7 men looked on was insult to injury.
Glory was a symbol of how far we’ve come as women. That gyrating imbecile was a symbol of how very far we still have to go.