As a woman, going out in public can feel like a daunting task. Most women are constantly on high alert for threats and nuisances in their surroundings, including men who catcall on the streets and ogle in the gym.
Over the years, countless women have uploaded videos of themselves trying to do day-to-day activities while being interrupted by men, like this prank, for example:
Recently, a content creator in Singapore posted a similar video on TikTok, but it didn’t go as she expected.
In the now deleted video, the creator, Michelle Lim, showed a man in a white shirt and claimed was staring at her.
“Filmed to confirm my suspicion because he kept staring at my direction,” Lim captioned. “Exercise: 10 sets of staring at girls in the gym. Watch how he slowly checks out the girl.”
She also added the hashtag, #gymcreeps, to get her point across.
But while it may have appeared that the mystery man was looking in Lim’s general direction, another TikToker pointed out that that wasn’t the case.
The anonymous account, @dontanyhowrecord, responded to Lim’s video with another possible scenario. The user uploaded another video taken in the same gym and claims that the man who was allegedly “staring” at Lim was actually just watching an episode of “Mr Bean.”
“I understand that you felt uncomfortable, but discreetly filming the person and posting online with no attempt to confirm the situation wasn’t right. The gym has staff that can handle situations like this,” the anonymous user wrote.
In response to the correction, Lim first turned off comments on all of her videos, and later deleted her original video. She also took the time to post an apology.
“I remember feeling uncomfortable while doing my walking lunges as we made eye contact frequently. I felt unsafe at that point of time and when I switched to my next exercise at the cables, I decided to film him for evidence, in case anything happened to me,” Lim explained.
“While I was editing the video, I just wanted to get my point across that everyone should feel safe at a public space that is commonly dominated by the males. And females should be free to choose their outfits based on their likes and preferences and shouldn’t be judged for it. That’s all.”
She closed by apologizing again to the man in the video, and asked him to reach out to her.
“I’m sorry to the guy I’ve posted in the video—also, I don’t have your contact. Please reach out to me so I can apologize to you personally too.”
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