For years we’ve snickered at movies and shows where little boys peek up women’s skirts and are hastily swatted away. Now, it appears big boys are doing the same thing, only they’re taking pictures of women’s private parts and posting them on the Internet for others to look at. Such behavior is currently being reviewed by our state Supreme Court to determine if it’s actually illegal. Let’s hope the court sends the offenders a painful swat that such voyeurism and victimization of women is indeed against the law and is nothing to snicker about.
It might surprise some to learn that it wasn’t until 1998 that a state law was created making it a crime to photograph people in places where they could expect some semblance of privacy — such as a public restroom. That was the law used to convict two men who took pictures up women’s skirts at a Seattle festival and a Yakima shopping mall. The men claim they weren’t breaking the law because the women can’t expect that kind of privacy in a public place.
Women and little girls should be able to shop in public, stand in line to buy ice cream at a festival and do anything else they need to without having to worry about hidden cameras taking pictures up their skirts. The blatant victimization of the act should be enough to encourage the state’s highest court to reject the offenders’ pitiful appeals. As James Whisman, with the King County Prosecutor’s Office told the justices, most people would agree such an act is indeed a "hostile intrusion."
Those who would argue that what women don’t know won’t hurt them, obviously have a very low opinion of females in general. Such a violation, whether it’s for personal use or spread over the Internet, promotes the degradation and objectification of women in our society and opens the door to the toleration of more serious abuse.
Rejecting these men’s appeals would not detrimentally impact normal photography in public, nor would it establish a precedent making it a violation of privacy to leer, glance or even stare at someone in public, Whisman explained.
Our culture today has become very lax about modesty and women have contributed to that. "Reality" TV shows depict women flagrantly flashing their breasts at Mardi Gras celebrations and Spring Break vacations. Such behavior is distasteful and unfortunate, but it should not lead anyone to think they can violate a woman of any age, even without her knowledge, and expect to get away with it.
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