As technology advances, it seems men can’t avoid finding ways to use it to harass women. This is especially true for surveillance devices. It’s hard to be in public without some sort of camera keeping you in its span of vision.

For women everywhere, the feeling that you’re constantly at the mercy of the male gaze is anxiety-inducing enough without technological advancements heightening these fears. 

At their October 2025 release, Meta showed off their AI glasses with a variety of features, which included a digital display controlled via hand gestures, 3D visuals and the ability to record Ultra HD video for up to eight hours.

The idea that women can encounter a man wearing Meta glasses without realizing it, potentially recording without the opposite party’s consent, could be a tremendous concern for women everywhere trying to go about their day.

University of Minnesota second-year student Maya Carriker said the glasses could pose potential threats to women’s safety.

“It’s recorded in public without consent or knowledge,” Carriker said.

One of the biggest red flags with this technology is that it can embolden men who already don’t respect women’s boundaries. Male pickup artists represent a sect of men who see harassment and coercion as flirting techniques.

Pickup artists already record themselves trying to attract random women to share their techniques with other men, and technology like Meta AI glasses only makes the process more efficient.  

Women can try to avoid any man they see looming towards them with a phone camera or a videography set-up, but with wearable technology, these uncomfortable interactions can take place before the intended target even realizes what’s happening, and without their explicit consent.

“It’s one thing if I know about it, but it feels so different than, like, security cameras, because it’s literally right in front of you,” Carriker said. “You are assuming it’s not happening, and then you don’t know what it could be used for, ‘cause it could literally be used for anything.”

The awkward conversations between men with Meta AI glasses and the women they try to clumsily flirt with are made worse by the fact that these interactions will most likely end up as social media content without the women involved having any say.

The glasses’ potential to be used for pick-up content highlights a disturbing mentality that is directly tied to misogyny.

For the men keen on taking and posting recordings of women in public, the need to have control over the subjects of their videos is evident. If they can subject women to online ridicule via comments on Instagram or TikTok about their looks, demeanor or sexual history, they can view her as lesser, especially if she rejects their advances.

The men recording through Meta AI glasses get off on the idea that they can technologically dominate women who might not have given them a second glance otherwise.

Additionally, Meta has plans to integrate facial recognition technology into the glasses. While the company doesn’t know exactly what that would look like, it could entail an internal feature that would let people who wear them identify others and potentially have access to information about them.

University fourth-year student Kaia Heshelman said the content taken from Meta AI glasses has the potential to be used in frightening ways.

“I feel like it could even be used to blackmail someone,” Heshelman said. “Now you can just blackmail someone with their footage that they didn’t even know you had.” 

For women on college campuses, the potential to be recorded is harrowing. Recording drunk people on the street at night or targeting groups of girls becomes easier at a university where everyone lives in proximity and is typically out at night on the weekends. 

The idea of not knowing the person behind the camera is especially concerning, Heshelman said.

“Most likely you don’t know who the person is that’s recording you, and you don’t know what they’re gonna do with the footage, so that’s the scariest part for me,” Heshelman said.

For a piece of emerging technology, being known as the “pervert glasses” doesn’t seem to bode well for how they’ll be used by consumers. It’s important to recognize the potential that this technology has to be a tool for heightening sexism and making women’s lives increasingly more difficult.