If I were ever tempted to think feminism had done its job, a cursory glance at the Daily Mail online would be enough to convince me how much further there is to go. How else can you explain the news outlet's choice to publish a lengthy forensic dissection of Sunrise host Samantha Armytage's love life, headlined by her scandalous, grotesque decision to leave the house wearing full brief underwear and no makeup?
Armytage was the target of a series of creep shots over the weekend as part of the Daily Mail's latest despicable display of misogyny dressed up as celebrity news. And I use the term "creep shots" deliberately, because it's time this form of media abuse was called out. Following a woman to her car to capture images of her visible panty line on film isn't photojournalism - it's a sleazy act of harassment.
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In fact, in the blanket mist of harassment that women like Armytage are subjected to on a daily basis, it isn't an exaggeration to call this kind of behaviour stalking. After all, she's being followed, spied on, photographed without her knowledge and then exposed when she least expects it to an audience of millions. Worse, she's told (along with the rest of us) that there's nothing she can do about it. This is the price of fame. This comes with the territory. You just have to ignore it.
But how to ignore something so toxic and orchestrated? And more to the point, how to ignore an organisation that seemingly has so much power precisely because it's so decidedly lacking in ethics? When news broke that the Daily Mail was launching an Australian branch, the collective feminist shudder that followed could be felt around the nation. This is a newspaper so intent on indulging its hatred for women (and the belief that this hatred is gleefully shared by those same women) that its lady-specific pages (noxiously titled 'Femail') are little more than a celebration of slut shaming, fat shaming, skinny shaming, age shaming and life shaming. Women exist only to be picked on and laughed at, fodder for wanking over and wanking on.
But why do they get away with it? Why are women like Armytage not protected from this kind of brazen, solicited, professional stalking? If this were a Facebook page run by schoolboys with an audience of only dozens, it would be written about in scolding tones in the very pages of the newspaper that models this kind of behaviour to the masses. And while that condemnation would be called for, it's little more than hypocrisy to pretend this gleeful sexism doesn't form a substantial part of the Daily Mail's financial bottom line.
It's easy for people to dismiss this behaviour as typical of tabloid bottom feeders, but that does nothing to actually stop the behaviour from happening. Why is there a market for this stuff? The answer isn't, as some might be tempted to say, because women are all catty deep down and love to read this sort of bitchy Schadenfreude. I see just as many men as women (if not more) commenting on pieces like this, offering their Extremely Important Opinions about whether or not they find Woman X attractive enough or whether or not she needs to 'go for a run love' or start 'dressing her age' or any number of variations on the irrelevant and boring critique that women are subjected to constantly and that men feel entitled to offer.
![Regularly subjected to media abuse: Samantha Armytage.](/web/20161213100756im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/8/t/4/3/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gt96ff.png/1481533082367.jpg)
People tolerate it because we have, as a society, given some kind of permission. We do it every time we engage uncritically with this nonsense and we double down on it when we claim that people in the spotlight - and especially women - should know what to expect if they put their heads above the parapet. Now, this doesn't mean those people should be shielded from all disagreement. I've written about Armytage before and what I see as her complicity in some of these same structural systems. Her refusal to speak out against her male colleagues when they mock women has always infuriated me and I've had no problem publicly saying so. Likewise, critique offered about my views is not inherently unfair or sexist just because I'm a woman.
But I would never follow Armytage to the supermarket and creep shot her to make a salacious, humiliating observation about her underwear and use that to subtly imply she's fat ("granny pants" being most famous for being the supposedly chubby Bridget Jones' underwear of choice). And nor do I consider the critiques of me or any other woman that use our photographs and implications of ugliness, 'sluttiness' (or its opposing twin, sexlessness) to be legitimate and therefore fair. They're not. They're lazy, misogynistic and - where they are based on stalking and creeping - should be treated as criminal. (Armytage is reportedly contemplating legal action.)
It's hard to see how the Daily Mail can continue to outdo its own abhorrence, but it somehow keeps succeeding. Perhaps calling it what it is - stalking, harassment and sustained bullying - will start to see a shift in public perception. We can't be outraged at the everyday people who exhibit this behaviour while continuing to sanction the media that shows them exactly how it's done.
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