Baguio’s “men in heels” star in women’s month launching
IT WAS a sight to behold as ten male police and three jail personnel wore high heels and other women’s shoes during the city’s launching of the Kababaihan Festival at the City Hall grounds.
The brave men said they borrowed their women’s shoes from their wives, mothers, sisters , relatives, female co-workers and even girlfriends.
They joined local officials headed by Mayor Mauricio Domogan and newlyinducted officers of the Outstanding Women Leaders (OWLS) of Baguio in unfurling the festival’s list of month-long activities.
OWL officer Patti Gallardo said the male police and jail personnel were requested to wear women’s shoes as an adaption of the international awardwinning “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes” project that started in the United States in 2001.
The project asks men to literally walk one mile in women’s high-heeled shoes to experience the difficulties that women have to deal with on a daily basis.
“It is not easy walking in women’s shoes and it gets people talking about gender relations, the seriousness of domestic violence, rape and men’s sexualized violence against women. It demonstrates that men who walk in women’s shoes are willing and courageous partners of women in making the world a safer place,” Gallardo explained.
She said since 2001, more and more men, women and their families around the world have joined the activity to educate and make people aware of gender issues, decrease and prevent the potential for violence, and raise positive activism by getting men to work together with their female counterparts in ending violence against women.