Can someone please explain to me why Sports Sunday presenter, Emma Freedman, was castigated for her comments following the latest shared-photo-of-nude-woman scandal? And while you’re at it, why she should have had to resort to explaining her comments via a lengthy Twitter post? And where does “feminism” come into it anyway???
Okay, so feminism is all about women being free to make their own choices, which is great, except that it doesn’t automatically mean that every choice a woman makes is going to be a good one. Nor does it mean that when a woman makes a silly one, like posing nude for a football player (duh!) and expecting him Not to circulate the pic amongst his mates (double duh!) that she is exempt from having to take any responsibility, in any way, for the fallout!
Football players behaving trashily towards women is not new. They also get away with it a lot of the time despite clubs “promising” to do something about it and as a result, some players are still doing lowlife things like sharing naked woman snaps with their mates because they believe they can. What they don’t do is consider how the woman is going to feel about it. No surprises there! But the thing is, the naked snap and share trend has been happening for some time and we have all been made well aware of it because the media jumps all over it every time it happens. And so it should, because the men who do this need to be named, shamed and made accountable for what they have done. Because of the exposure however, it should be obvious to all that choosing to pose for such a pic with such a guy is a real bad idea because the chances of Naked You going viral are really high. In this particular instance, did the young woman agree to pose on the assumption that the pic would remain private? Silly girl if she thought that. Did she specifically say “don’t share this, okay!” believing he wouldn’t (duh again). Or did he say something like “Wow, this looks great, mind if I share it?” (doubt it) to which she (no doubt at all!) would have been unlikely to have given her consent and believed he wouldn’t (face-palming here). The bottom line though is that she did pose and he did share and why is anyone surprised?
Which brings us back to the freedom of choice thingy. Yes, women have a lot more freedom today to choose what they do, but with freedom comes accountability as every action has a reaction and opting to pose naked for a footballer who then opted to share the image with all his mates was possibly one of the worst choices this young woman could have made. Has the player stepped completely out of line in sharing it? He most certainly has, but is the young woman exempt from all responsibility? No, I don’t think so. She would have been aware, thanks to media coverage in the past, when other women have been caught out by lewd player behaviour, that it could come back to haunt her. Surely she must realised that. Look, I don’t think for one minute that what happened to her is okay, but surely she must have had an inkling it could all go horribly wrong.
Which also brings us back to Emma Freedman’s comment about one not taking one’s clothes off. It was a very honest and valid comment and Ms Freedman was entitled to make it without suffering the backlash which resulted in her feeling she had to explain herself via a Twitter comment, which she should not have had to do! She was 100 percent correct! “Don’t take your clothes off!” Seriously, if you would not want your friends or colleagues, partner, siblings, parents or grandparents to see you posed provocatively in the altogether, Don’t Take Your Clothes Off!!! It’s as simple as that!
You can choose to say No.