Sigh. A photo of a New York man in a suit humping Wall Street’s recently erected Defiant Girl statue has gone viral for all the wrong reasons. As explained by photographer Alexis Kaloyanides on Facebook: “Douchebags like this are why we need feminism.”
According to Kaloyanides, who posted the snap on Thursday March 9, the man mimicked humping the statue (also known as the Fearless Girl) while spectators were admiring the new piece of art, which was commissioned by State Street Global Advisers, the world’s third-largest asset manager, as part of its new campaign to push companies to add more women to their boards.
“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. “He pretended to have sex with the image of a little girl. Douchebags like this are why we need feminism.”
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the woman recalled that the man and his friends interrupted a “nice moment” between 15 to 20 people who were admiring the statue for its message of gender equality.
“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. “He was gone within 20 seconds, but it just ruined the mood of the scene. There were people there talking about empowering children and women and for then to have this 20-something showing his entitlement, defiling the statute … it was utterly revolting.”
