Laci Green, a feminist sex educator, produced this graphic:
Laci (whose work I’m generally a fan of) isn’t alone; a lot of blogs and news outlets have said – often in clickbaity headlines – that rulings in Texas and DC recognize a First Amendment right to take upskirt shots of non-consenting women.
That’s not what either judgement said. And it’s damaging when alarming but false stories like these spread.
There are a thousand crucial problems for feminists to be concerned with – the wage gap, the high prevalence of rape, revenge porn, the caregiving gap, sexual harassment, street harassment, attacks on reproductive rights, and I could go on and on. It doesn’t benefit feminism or women when feminists pass around mistaken information; on the contrary, it leads to energy and anger being misdirected.
The Texas judgement (pdf link) said that the law they overturned was unconstitutional because it was overbroad – that is, the law was so broadly written that it could apply to a bunch of constitutionally protected photos, rather than focusing narrowly on upskirt shots (for instance, the judge wrote “this statute could easily be applied to an entertainment reporter who takes a photograph of an attractive celebrity on a public street”). In fact, the ruling flat-out said that a narrow law banning upskirt shots would be constitutional:
We agree with the State that substantial privacy interests are invaded in an intolerable manner when a person is photographed without consent in a private place, such as the home, or with respect to an area of the person that is not exposed to the general public, such as up a skirt. […]
The DC judgement wasn’t about upskirt shots; it was about under what circumstances cops have sufficient grounds to arrest someone for taking photos.The judge specifically noted that there was no evidence that the photographer the cops arrested was taking upskirt shots:
While the Government has repeatedly attempted to characterize this as an “upskirt” case, there is no evidence that the Defendant positioned his camera on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial or otherwise underneath individuals’ clothing in order to capture clothed or concealed portions of the body.
As far as I can tell, neither decision said that a creep sticking his camera under a skirt is protected by the First Amendment.
See also: Popehat and Outside the Beltway.
What you say is quite true and reasonable, Amp. But it doesn’t fit the narrative, so don’t expect your viewpoint to get publicized.
It seems to me that Ms. Green’s objective here is not to tell the truth. Her objective here is to promote the concepts that people think that sexual crimes against a woman are generally thought to be the woman’s fault, that the right to be a sexual predator can be equated with the right to free speech when it comes to women’s privacy and that women’s bodies are public property. If the truth serves those ends, great. If not, she’s glad to lie about it in order to promote those narratives.
I’d be interested to see what her response is if you post the (quite reasonable and well researched, from my viewpoint) above commentary on any blog she maintains. Will she apologize for being wrong, or somehow attempt to rationalize her action?
Do you have any familiarity with Ms. Green or her work?
I ask because it seems likely that she was just basing her claims on information from the many news sources Ampersand linked, which included noted left-wing propagandist site Breitbart.com. She’s hardly the only one making these claims, nor is she a news source, so to accuse her of deliberate lies seems … extreme, to say the least.
If you are familiar with Ms. Green and her work, what, specifically is it in her work that makes you think she’d be engaging in deliberate deception?
If you’re not familiar with Ms. Green or her work … is your claim just a lie you’ve invented in order to promote your narrative?
—Myca
From what I’ve seen of her work, I would assume that Laci Green was being honest and was fooled by the terrible coverage these cases have received. Nearly all of the media really blew it on this story.
I have a question. Whatever the legal reasoning, is the practical result of this case that people who wear skirts still have no legal recourse in these jurisdictions when people take up-skirt photos of them?
Good question, I should have thought of discussing that in the original post.
As I understand it – and I am not a lawyer, so please take this whole comment from me with the appropriate grains of salt – in DC, the existing law against voyeurism would make up-skirt photos illegal. It’s just that what this person did wasn’t up-skirt photos.
In the Texas case, unless there’s some other applicable law other than the one the judge overturned, there is currently no law against taking upskirt photos without consent. :-( However, the Texas legislature will most likely pass a more Constitutional law targeting upskirt photos, as the judge pretty much recommended in the ruling. When there was a similar court ruling in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts legislature passed a new law literally the day after the court’s ruling.
A little bit more on what photos the DC guy took, quoted from the judge’s ruling:
The court’s spokeswoman said “There was absolutely no evidence that on the day of his arrest, the defendant engaged in behavior that could be described in any way as ‘upskirting’ (the taking of photographs up a woman’s skirt).”
While it may not be “upskirting”, taking close up photos of individual women in public places is pretty creepy. It makes me wonder what this guys motives were.
I’d be interested to see what her response is if you post the (quite reasonable and well researched, from my viewpoint) above commentary on any blog she maintains.
You could go over and link to it yourself. Of course, that would probably involve calling her a liar to her face. I assume you’re up for that, RonF?
Yeah, Ron–have the guts to plagiarize someone! *rolleyes*
Laci Green, Internet celebrity, does marketing. She sensationalizes to draw pageviews. She exaggerates and uses hyperbole and absurd comments to garner attention. That doesn’t mean she’s dishonest, but it does mean she’ll say or pass along deliberately provocative interpretations of things to generate interest. She’s not a journalist with an obligation to impartial objectivity.
Posting a link is plagiarism?
But Mythago, you missed the *eyeroll*! Didn’t you know that acting superior changes the legal definitions of things?
Honestly, the more I read on the Cleveland Christopher case, the less comfortable I am with it. I’d need to actually see the pictures in question to be certain, but what it sounds like is that he was taking photographs *up the skirts* of women sitting on the steps of the monument in such a way that taking photos up their skirts didn’t require any special contortion on his part. Except he was zooming in, focusing on their crotches, etc.
Thought the judge said that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy for women “in a public place with private areas of their bodies exposed to view,” she also characterized his behavior as, “repelling and disturbing.”
I want to emphasize, I’m not sure I’m right on this … I’m making a leap, but it seems like a reasonable one.
—Myca
Myca, I don’t think that’s what he did on the day he was arrested, judging from what the judge wrote and the court spokeswoman said (see my comment #9). From what the judge said in the ruling, it sounds like he had photos of people whose underwear was showing above the tops of their pants/skirt tops. And the court spokeswoman’s comment seems to absolutely rule out any sort of upskirt shots at all.
What am I missing?
I’m just having trouble envisioning this, I guess – He’s facing the monument, women are sitting on the steps facing him, and he’s taking photographs of their underwear riding up. Wouldn’t that be behind them?
You’re probably right, though – I missed the “There was absolutely no evidence that on the day of his arrest, the defendant engaged in behavior that could be described in any way as ‘upskirting’” statement.
—Myca
O.K., so it seems that Lacy’s statement for Texas is accurate. This court ruling means that taking up skirt photos is still legal in Texas (although a more narrow law could still pass constitutional muster – I don’t think she’s denying that). In D.C., again, I’m not clear. Is it not o.k. to go directly up a skirt, but o.k. if you use a telephoto lens from a distance?If that’s the case, some approaches to taking up skirt photos are still legal. Yes?
In practical results, skirt wearers are still responsible for making sure that no one photos up their skirts in both jurisdictions. Am I missing something?
Kate:
Thanks for your comment. I’m afraid I don’t agree with your conclusion.
Laci’s graphic, and the other examples I linked in my post, all gave the impression or explicitly say that the judges found a free speech right to take upskirt photos. That’s not accurate – not even though the result in Texas is that the legislature has to pass a new law.
An analogy: If the Texas Legislature – intending to attack child pornography – passed a law against taking or publishing any and all photographs of children, the courts would quickly overturn that law for free speech reasons. But it would be inaccurate to then say the court had found a free speech right to make child pornography. And if I went out and said “the court says there’s a free speech right to make child porn,” I would be badly misinforming anyone who listened to me.
In the DC case, as far as I can tell from the judge’s ruling and the court spokeswoman’s statements, the case was not about “going up a skirt” – not directly, not with a telephoto lens, not in any way at all. The photos at issue, according to the court, weren’t upskirt photos by any definition.
Well, it’s always legal to take upskirt photos if the model consents. But as far as I can tell, nothing about this ruling makes it legal to take nonconsensual upskirt photos, and DC’s existing law against “voyeurism” can still be used to punish someone caught taking upskirt photos, including telephoto lens upskirt photos.
I could be wrong – I’m not a lawyer. But that’s my honest impression after having carefully read the judge’s opinion.
O.K., I see the distinction.
Everyone, including, of course, feminists, should take material on the internet (and, heck, in print too) with a little salt rather than believing everything we read so long as it fits our favorite narrative. This seems to be especially true of accounts of court holdings. Case reports are written in”legalese” which can be difficult to read. (Also, a lot of them are just plain not very well written.)
We damage our cause if we indulge in inaccuracy and extreme reactions. I understand the temptation to fuzz things up in the interest of advancing our own views, but I think it is unwise (and, if we understand the realities, dishonest).
Indeed. Hell, I’ve been called on the carpet for doing so myself right here on this blog (and in the instances it’s happened, quite justifiably). This is something I have to believe someone as experienced as Ms. Green is well aware of. But she plunged ahead anyway.
This kind of thing makes me angry. Upon cooling off and reflecting – can I prove she deliberately lied? In the end, only she knows. So I have to back off and say that I cannot. I apologize for that. But if in the end it was possible to objectively determine the truth independently of her own testimony, I’d be willing to give good odds.
Why does it make me angry? Because the public debate, elections and the governance of this country is turning not on logic and reason but on sound bites, propaganda, manipulation, lies and emotion. You will answer “‘Twas ever thus”, and to a certain extent you’d be right. But what’s changed is the instantaneous nature and fantastically broad reach of our communications technology. A lie gets around the world before the truth gets out of bed – and people set their mind on the 10-second lie and never bother to listen to the 5-minute truth afterwards. Worse, they never seem to consider the fact that the 10-second sound bite might very well be a lie in the first place. Even intelligent people – such as, I presume, Ms. Green – commit this sin. And will she, in fact, put together a powerful graphic and spread the truth as enthusiastically as she did a lie (even if it wasn’t HER lie)?
If Ms. Green deserves the reputation she seems to have with you, she and her supporters need to show some integrity now – and some thoughtfulness and skepticism later, the next time they see something like this. If she takes a lesson, fine. If not, she does not deserve high esteem.
By “doing so”, RonF, do you mean plunging ahead without carefully reading what you were quoting? Or do you mean that you were either deliberately lying, or recklessly plunging ahead without confirming the truth because it sounds better that way, as you suggest Green is doing?
I’m not sure what more you expect of Amp other than exactly what he did here – pointing out both that Green was wrong, and that what she (and others) are doing is damaging and problematic. This kind of sloppiness and headline-scanning bothers me at least as much as it does you, RonF, but in most cases it’s carelessness and ignorance, particularly when a legal decision turns on a concept that may not be easy to parse for a layperson.
Well, and when the same misunderstanding is being reported by both sides of the political divide, as was the case here.
I mean, if I see something on Huffpo with an alarming headline, I might be a little suspicious, but when I see it also reported on Salon, and Breitbart, and ABC and several others, I’m going to be far more likely to accept it without doing extensive digging of my own.
—Myca
Myca,
I was thinking the same thing.
If it’s an article about biological science, while I’m not an expert, I feel like I have enough knowledge that I might spot something that mainstream reporting is not reporting/is distorting. If it’s a court decision, even if I find something that seems to contradict the mainstream reporting, I may well decide that I must be wrong simply because I don’t have much expertise, and hey, all these media outlets all over the political spectrum are reporting it. And knowing that makes it less likely that I’ll try to read the original court decision.
I don’t expect anything more of Amp. He’s fine. Spot on. It’s Ms. Green’s subsequent actions that will tell a tale.
Well, you keep a weather eye out then. RonF.
Really? over the last couple decades I’ve taken maybe 40k pictures of random people on the subway just because I like taking artsy pictures. I never knew I was creepy.
Were they close-up photos of people on the subway taken without their permission? If so, maybe you were.