Wall Street Bro Humps Fearless Girl Statue

Bros, Bulls And Balls

March 11th, 2017 – Following Wednesday’s “A Day Without A Woman,” one female strongly believes Thursday should have been “A Day Without One Particular Man.” Architectural designer Alexis Kaloyanides went with co-workers to see the “Fearless Girl” statue, which had recently been placed in front of the charging bull on Wall Street Tuesday evening. Hoping to see a symbolic figure of women’s empowerment, she instead saw a literal humping of gender equality.

Kaloyanides spoke with Inside Edition after her photo of the incident went viral. She told them how quickly the mood changed when the setting went from a five or six-year-old girl posing with the statue to a 20-something defiling the statue.

“These three young men came along, and at first they were hanging off the bull… and then this one guy rushed up and started grinding against the statue of the girl, being lewd and totally inappropriate,” she said. 

Kaloyanides said the crowd immediately yelled at the man who walked off laughing with his friends. The “entitlement,” as she described it, only lasted about 20 seconds but that was long enough for her to snap a photo. She shared it to her Instagram and Facebook pages, making the post public and now shared over 15,000 times.

“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,” her caption read.

Many comments echo Kaloyanides’ concerns, and Mayor Bill de Blasio labeled it as rape culture.

This is rape culture. https://t.co/Eswp46lebT

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) March 11, 2017

Simulating sexual assault — especially on a statue of a very young girl — is not funny. https://t.co/q8Ak3WOuez

— Chirlane McCray (@NYCFirstLady) March 11, 2017

Kaloyanides falls back on the reminder that this man did the act in public and wanted to get a reaction. She said he’s getting it now – good or bad.

“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,'” she said. “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.”

Over 12,000 people have signed a petition to make State Street Global Advisors’ “Fearless Girl” a permanent installation – hoping to increase gender diversity and to send a message to finance companies about increasing the number of women on their corporate boards.

Do you think this currently unidentified man was just joking around or was his action part of a larger, more serious problem? Funny or Offensive? Vote and comment below.