Misogyny Watch: Upskirting

I don't usually read Pandagon, but there's a great little article over there about the phenomenon of "upskirting", i.e. the taking of pictures up a woman's skirt, in public and without her consent.

The article is a great dissection of the motivation behind this kind of sexual assault, touching on issues of objectification and entitlement -- the kind of entitlement that causes these men to get angry when their target is wearing shorts under their skirt. How dare they!

The comment thread is also unusually interesting. First, there's a troll of unusual talent there, causing a long ruckus about the definition of misogyny. K, I know we've had this sort of discussion before, but I think it's worthwhile to read, for two reasons. First, maybe the explanations of commenters there will make more sense than mine, and second, it illustrates my point about how certain things are part of a larger pattern -- the things this guy is saying are nothing new, either to me or to the commenters, however genuinely he may believe them.

I also want to pull this quote, because I love it:

Misogyny isn’t just hatred of women, and I think that’s where you’re getting hung up. You don’t hate a vending machine. But you swear at it and hit it when you put in your quarter and candy doesn’t come out. And the experience of being treated as an object and the experience of being hated for acting like you’re not an object, but a person with rights and feelings, are pretty much the same to the person experiencing it, and they fall under the same label.