Combatting Gender Privilege and Recognizing a Woman's Right to Privacy in Public Spaces: Arguments to Criminalize Catcalling and Creepshots
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Combatting Gender Privilege and Recognizing a
Woman's Right to Privacy in Public Spaces:
Arguments to Criminalize Catcalling and Creepshots
Marc Tran*
INTRODUCTION
This comment explores two permutations of entitlement to women's
attention and bodies in public: street harassment (catcalling) and upskirt
and down-blouse photography (collectively, creepshots). Part I is
devoted to discussing street harassment-its harms (on an individual and
societal scale), legal solutions, and the limits of the law. Part II is devoted
to creepshots-their harms, the evolution of the perpetrator, and legal
solutions. Both catcalling and creepshots disproportionately impact
women. As such, an acknowledgement of gender privilege' is a necessary
prerequisite to exploring the harms and possible remedies of street
harassment and up-skirt photography. There have been various attempts by
men (and some women) to delegitimize these harms,2 but this is best
understood as a failure and refusal to acknowledge gender privilege. While
the causes of this behavior are up for debate, the harms of catcalling and
creepshots are undeniable-ranging from anxiety to escalated incidents of
sexual assault and stalking.3 Accordingly, these behaviors should be
criminalized, regardless of any First Amendment issues they may raise.
*J.D. Candidate, University of California Hastings College of the Law 2015; B.A.,
University of California, Riverside 2011. I would like to thank my family (blood and chosen)
for their support and this journal's awesome staff for whipping this comment into shape.
1. For the purposes of this note, I reject the nomenclature of male privilege because it
excludes folks that identify or present as masculine of center, but not male, that nonetheless
benefit from gender privilege.
2. See, e.g., author Steve Santagati said in CNN interview that [p]olitical correctness
has gone too far. If you don't like it as a woman, turn around and tell him to shut up. Stand
up for yourself. Act like a strong woman. Abby Ohlheiser, That Time CAIN Asked a 'Bay
Boy' Expert to Give His Thoughts on Catcalling, WASH. POST (Nov. 3, 2014), http://www.
washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/11/03/that-time-cnn-asked-a-bad-boy-expert
-to-give-his-thoughts-on-catcalling/.
3. See infra pp. 186-89 and 197-99.
HASTINGS WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/haswo26&div=18&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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