So far the reaction to the Kate Middleton topless photos has
been depressingly predictable. A good 50% (if not more) of the reader comments
in the online press and on twitter in some way hold Kate responsible for going
topless in the first place.
Even a large number of the supportive comments still have
that snarky little “but what was she thinking” tagged in to the end.
There is so much wrong with this attitude. She was on a
private holiday, on a private estate with her husband. She has every right to
expect to be able to do as she pleases in these circumstances. She was stalked
and her privacy grossly invaded. Should women have to accept this level of
intrusion just for having breasts? There is nothing wrong with sunbathing
topless on private property, this does not equal “asking for it”.
This kind of victim blaming attitude is the start of a very
slippery slope and it is worrying that so many people still perpetuate this
point of view.
In its rush to condemn French Closer magazine the press also
seem to have missed the irony that the news broke while William and Kate were
on a visit to a mosque that involved her having to be completely covered and
wearing a headscarf to stop men looking at her. A large majority of the western
population believe that women covering up in this way is repressive, yet a
famous woman can’t take her top off in private without being papped and then
blamed for it. Which is it to be?This obsession with women’s bodies, this need to reduce them to the sum of their body parts regardless of anything else they may achieve, this constant blaming of women for acting normally is
out of control right now.
I hope William and Kate sue and win, and I hope people think twice about buying magazines with pap shots in. The only way this will stop is if the public stop looking at these pictures.....I can dream.
