BAGUIO’S MEN IN HEELS – Supporting the Women’s Month celebration, Baguio’s men in uniform pose at the stage wearing women’s shoes to the delight of their colleagues, city hall employees and officials headed by Mayor Mauricio Domogan during City Hall flag raising ceremonies. – By Bong Cayabyab
BAGUIO CITY – 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 Women’s Month (Kababaihan Festival) Monday 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 newly-inducted 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 award-winning “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 that 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.
Meanwhile, this year’s Outstanding Women Leaders (OWLS) of Baguio were awarded at the PFVR as part of the city’s celebration of International Women’s Day with retired Judge Delilah Munoz as guest of honor and speaker.
They include former councilor Philian Weygan Allan for spiritual and socio-cultural leadership; Flora Balaba for highlighting the rights of senior citizens, Elizabeth Mamanglo for the upliftment of women and family through cooperativism, Jocelyn Mariano for cooperativism and Sonia Gonzales Mina for organizational management.
By: Gaby Keith
