Mexico City’s Metro Has a Penis Seat and the Reason Behind it is Alarming

The discomfort and media furore caused by the provocative so-called penis seat (complete with abs, and reserved only for men) has been effective, sparking debate in English and Spanish-language medias, and giving men who used it an anatomically correct insight into the kind of common sexual harassment that women on this public transport system face on a daily basis.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSgVUtrhytf/?tagged=penisseat&hl=en

Although that’s not to say that everyone was entirely on board with this move. Some complained that it paints all men as abusers and aggressors and others claim it trivializes the reality of sexual harassment and assault. Yet with a whopping 90% of women and girls reporting feeling unsafe while traveling on public transport in Mexico and groping and verbal abuse being all too common, it’s undeniably refreshing to see a campaign which targets not the victims, but the aggressors for a change.

The responses to this penis seat were released in a video compilation titled “Experimento Asiento” (“Seat Experiment”), and this wave-making video was followed up not long after by a second one, titled “Experimento Pantallas” (“Screen Experiment”). The latter featured close up shots of male passengers on the platform televisions, in an attempt to make them feel as uncomfortable as women do when they’re ogled by (mainly) men on the metro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p5pp1pcOPs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvebzI_egJc

UN Women’s #NoEsDeHombres (“Men shouldn’t act this way,” in a very rough translation) campaign doesn’t just involve the media-friendly, limelight-hogging penis seat initiative though, as the print campaign has also been prevalent in Mexico City. Posters have been daubed around metro stations displaying men making lascivious faces at the viewer of the photo. Slogans like “this is how they look at your mother every day” really hammer home the message, as well as play on the Mexican people’s typically intense veneration of the mother figure.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTCXcQpFv2K/?tagged=noesdehombres&hl=en

While this penis seat campaign is neither the first attempt to combat sexual harassment on the Mexico City metro (there are women and children’s only carriages, the rules of which are regularly flouted), nor will it be the last, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.