‘Walk in Her Shoes’: Giving Women a Voice to Challenge the Status Quo
Walk in Her Shoes is an art exhibition about gender-based violence many women experience on a daily basis. This was made in partnership between the United Nations Gender Thematic Group (UNGTG), UP Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (UPCWGS) and the UP College of Fine Arts. Its collaborators include Bayi, Inc, SafeCity, and the UP Center for Women’s Studies Foundation.
First launched in December 2023 by the Commission of Human Rights, the UP College of Fine Arts held the exhibit at the Arts and Design Building from February 20 to 29.
The Continued Issue of Violence Against Women
The issue of violence against women continues to be a prevalent issue even today. The Philippine Commission on Women estimates that 17.5% of women have experienced violence against them. It’s not just physical either: statistics show that emotional abuse happens in 15.2% of cases. And it comes in many forms beyond one’s partner: many women experience violence from their parents.
Two out of five women keep silent about their experiences in gender-based violence. That’s partly due to societal taboos that discourage openly sharing these crimes. Moreover, many feel humiliated having been a victim in the first place. There’s also the fear of pushback and the perpetrator’s potential retaliation that may put them in danger.
With that in mind, the groups involved created this project to encourage discussion regarding the unequal power dynamics between genders. Additionally, it aims to offer women hope in confronting and recovering from trauma.
“In our continued pursuit to dismantle the deeply entrenched culture of shame and fear among women,” writer Cyzka Tumaliuan wrote in her description of the exhibit, “how do we shatter the suffocating silence that has become the status quo?”
The Boxes We Find Ourselves In
Walk in Her Shoes features giant boxes designed with slightly cartoonish worlds akin to the kind they have for dolls. They even include accessories based on the doll’s designated job. The worlds are broadly-done, with simplistic blocky drawings that attempt to represent them from a child’s perspective. Their restrictiveness and single-mindedness make you uncomfortable in how women’s lives are reduced to such smallness.
It’s an audiovisual project where you can enter the box and listen to the women narrate their experiences of gender-based violence. More importantly, they narrate how they took an active role in their life in response to that violence. Their stories tackle the stereotypes women face and the abuse they suffer. It talks of the mistreatment women receive in jobs such as caregivers, maids, and farmers.
“The exhibition invites you to confront ingrained stereotypes and societal norms, challenging the very essence encapsulated in the act of playing with dolls,” Tumaliuan wrote.
Speaking Out on the Violence Against Women
One woman talks about her experiences as a maid abroad and the ways her employers overworked and abused her. She would start working at 1 in the morning, forced into indignities like not being allowed to sit on a chair or even eat with her employers. They even forbade her to use the refrigerator. Still, she endured these indignities due to her need for money and a home.
Another described being a farmer in an area of conflict, struggling to give her family a peaceful way of life. For years, she and her family were refugees due to the conflict in Mindanao. She only found stability after the establishment of Bangsamoro, benefitting from the livelihood programs that helped give her the extra income she needed.
A specific example shows the modern-day troubles that young women tend to fall into: online sexual exploitation. One woman narrates how financial difficulties during the COVID pandemic forced her into online sex work, one that led to abuse from anonymous online predators pervasive in the system.
Empowering Women Today
Many of these survivors, whose experiences are protected with anonymity, worked with different organizations like UNICEF to reduce or eradicate abuse toward women. Some are there to ensure survivors get the proper treatment to deal with their trauma.
These survivors’ experiences turned them into advocates for women’s safety. Their stories further the discussion into the pervasiveness of violence against women, even in today’s society.
After the experiences in the dollhouses, the exhibit asks about the future. What kind of future do you see for women and girls of every kind in every place going forward? How do we stop the culture of violence we have? The exhibit forces you to stop and think about what needs to be done today to ensure gender equality and safety for everyone.
Walk in Her Shoes is a powerful statement about violence against women. It illustrates how women find themselves in situations where violence is done against them. The exhibit isn’t just for conversation, however: it forces us to reckon with the violence, and asks us what we’re willing to do to reduce it. Nobody should have to survive abuse just to be against it.
Read more: ‘Warm Bodies’: Creating Empathetic Art in an Unkind World
