Shock News: Women Eat!

Twitter and the press has exploded with indignation about a Facebook page dedicated to getting secret pictures of women eating on the London Underground. People are angry and believe that this is misogynistic and shames women.

Although, I now hate myself for it I looked at the page to see what all the fuss was about.  It is really boring.  The pictures are taken at odd angles and are often blurry and when you've seen one person stuffing some crisps into their mouth or biting into an apple you really don't need to see any more.  I couldn't find the comments journalists claim shame the women; most of them were just congratulating the man or woman (if their facebook names are to be believed) who took the terrible picture.  It is, obviously, a page lacking in equality for if anyone posts a picture of a man eating it gets ridiculed and probably taken down (there was a sneaky one of a woman feeding her male companion that had remained much to the disgust of the commenters) and maybe the intention is to make women feel uncomfortable but unless the woman looked for it, how would she know it was there?

Now, don't misunderstand me.  I'm not saying I approve of people taking these pictures.  I don't.  I think it's a bit weird but I also think the people who take pictures of men in red trousers are a bit weird as well (and there is a blog for that). There is also a Facebook page called TubeCrush where women secretly take pictures of men they fancy on the Underground and men aren't getting quite so angry about that, even though the comments are definitely of a, "Phwoar, look at that!" variety. However, I think that we have to be careful about getting too angry about it.  Would it not be better to admit to eating and agree that eating isn't shameful?  A shrug of the shoulders and a 'so what?' attitude would be less likely to encourage these people than writing articles, tweeting about how repulsive they are and arresting them so that they have something to brag about later.

There are questions to be answered in this day of online imagery about whether your image is your own and whether you have any rights to control who sees it.  Most of the pictures are not particularly flattering, which is understandable as it is impossible to look your best if you don't know the picture is being taken and when you are eating and most people would rather other people didn't see them. However, giving everyone the rights over pictures of their own face would be a legal nightmare.

I am very worried about the message all this anger is sending out and I'm worried about the publicity it is giving to the page. There will be people who start to think it's not OK for women to eat and definitely not to eat in public and in a world where female body image is a fragile thing this is not a good idea. I very much doubt that it's only women who are eating on the Tube but if they are then we have to wonder why women feel that eating is something they have to do while doing something else.

Let's celebrate food and eating as a good thing and realise that all humans eat regardless of their sex.