Women go undercover as men in Bravo's 'In a Man's World'

Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Bravo announced Monday that the limited event series In a Man's World would premiere Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 10 p.m.. Viola Davis and her husband Julius Tennon produce through their JuVee Productions along with Lucky 8.

In a Man's World will disguise four women as men using makeup by Lou and Dave Elsey. Dave Elsey won an Oscar for turning Benicio del Toro into The Wolfman and the Elseys also worked on the live-action Beauty and the Beast and The Wiz: Live!

The women will spend two days living as men, after spending weeks learning to speak and move convincingly. They interact with both professional colleagues and their own families as men until they reveal who they were underneath at the end.

One is a female pool player who faced harassment from men in the sport. Another is a City Council candidate who believes she lost an election because voters focused on her role as a mother. Another is a preacher who earns less pay and gets fewer jobs than her male counterparts. Another is an Indian-American woman whose family would prefer her to marry and have kids than have a career.

In a Man's World recalls the classic social experiment of Black Like Me, in which John Howard Griffin went undercover as a black man to illustrate just how differently he was treated in the Jim Crow South. In another updated form through the years, Tyra Banks once demonstrated body shaming and bias against overweight women by wearing a fat suit.

Davis herself has spoken out against the pay gap, sexism and racism in Hollywood.