The Daily Telegraph

Sexual harassment is being dialled up by the smartphone

- Elizabeth Day

lfred Prufrock famously measured out his A life in coffee spoons. I, on the other hand, can measure out my life in the phases of Taylor Swift. There was the cutesy Nashville phase where she wore long lace dresses and sang twangy teenage love songs. There was the global superstard­om phase when it was virtually impossible to turn on a radio anywhere in the world and not hear

Shake It Off. There was the regrettabl­e Tom Hiddleston phase, when the couple played out a relationsh­ip at warp speed, in the full glare of paparazzi cameras: romantic Rome mini-breaks; meeting the parents; frolicking in the sea on the Fourth of July. And that was all within the first 48 hours.

Now, we’re in the Swift-as-gutsyfemin­ist phase, which is my favourite one so far. She recently emerged triumphant (and with a symbolic

$1 in damages) from a court case against an American DJ by the name of David Mueller.

When Swift was 23, Mueller and his then-girlfriend posed for a photo with the singer backstage after a concert. According to Swift, Mueller, then 51, “took his hand and put it up my dress and grabbed on to my ass cheek, and no matter how much I scooted over, it was still there”.

Mueller sued the singer over the allegation­s, claiming they had led to him losing his job. Swift countersue­d. When she was cross-examined by Mueller’s lawyer, she responded with a series of witty zingers that made me fall in love with her all over again. When Swift was asked why no one else saw the incident, she replied: “The only person who would have a direct eye line is someone laying underneath my skirt, and we didn’t have anyone positioned there.” Swift won her case, and has since announced her intention to make several donations to charities that support sexual assault survivors. The photograph of Mueller, a man almost twice Swift’s age, groping her behind was central to the court case. Mueller’s lawyer tried to use this photo against the singer, as if her choice to pose for it somehow undermined her credibilit­y. She continued to meetand-greet her fans after the assault, the lawyer argued, so how upset could she really have been? Behind this lay a more troubling assumption: that by choosing to pose for a photograph for a fan, Swift had somehow offered herself up for his lecherous consumptio­n. That by being famous, she was necessaril­y public property. Which is rubbish, of course. But we live in a visual society, more so than ever before. Everyone now has a camera on their smartphone, and we have become fervent documenter­s of our own lives: our every birthday, holiday or photogenic restaurant meal snapped and swiftly uploaded online for the delectatio­n of others.

This can be a good thing, but it also means the line between public and private is blurring into insignific­ance. And where women’s bodies are concerned, that’s a cause for unease. Just because a man is holding a camera, or posing with a pop star for a photo does not give them the right to invade a woman’s personal space. A camera does not equate to control.

It’s not just Swift. In July, a 25-yearold writer called Gina Martin went to a music festival where a man rubbed up against her, placed his phone between her legs and took a photo of her crotch without her knowing. She later saw the image on his screen as he laughed and joked about it with a friend.

She felt violated, but when Martin took the matter to the police, they told her they could do nothing about it. The practice of “upskirting” (how depressing that it happens frequently enough to have its own name…) is not specifical­ly covered by the Sexual Offences Act. Martin has launched a petition to make it so. Upskirting is already illegal in Scotland, Australia, New Zealand and some US states. In Japan, all camera phones make a noise when a picture is taken that cannot be switched off, in order to discourage covert photograph­y – a neat and effective idea.

There will be those who think Martin should have simply shrugged it off. No one was physically hurt, after all. It is not among the most serious examples of sexual assault.

But this is to miss the point, which is that Martin’s body is her own to do what she wants with. Attending a music festival while wearing a skirt does not give anyone permission to take a photograph of her private parts simply because they have a piece of hand-held technology that enables them to do so.

We are entering new territory in the realm of sexual assault, one in which the raincoated flasher of old can hide behind a computer, and the law has been slow to catch up. In 2014, hackers in the United States leaked several hundred nude icloud photos of female celebritie­s, two men were jailed… but the images are still readily available to view online. To reiterate: simply because a woman is famous and simply because photos of her exist, does not automatica­lly mean her body is public property.

Today’s sexual aggressor has been raised in a digitised era where private photos are routinely shared online and pornograph­y is readily available on a blinking smartphone screen. The man who upskirted Martin believed he had a right to photograph her body without her permission.

He doesn’t, any more than he has a right to walk up to her in the street and grope her breasts. A photograph does not make someone public property. And using a camera is just as invasive as using your hands.

‘A camera does not give anyone the right to invade a woman’s personal space’

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 ??  ?? Gutsy feminist phase: Taylor Swift
Gutsy feminist phase: Taylor Swift

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