Have you ever been rushing to get to work and ended up eating an apple or a cereal bar on the bus? While gorging on strongly scented food in a confined space isn't exactly neighbourly, most of us have, at some stage, consumed some sort of food on public transport.
But if you happen to be in London the next time you chow down while travelling, your photo might end up on a downright creepy Facebook group called Women Who Eat on Tubes. Contributors to the group take photos of, well, women eating food on the Tube, which they then post on the site for members to gawp at and, frequently, make insulting comments about.
Journalist Sophie Wilkerson was running late on her way to her grandparents' house when she grabbed an M&S salad to eat en route. While on the Underground she noticed a man who seemed to be taking a photo of her, but didn't think much of it until friends told her there was a photo of her and her pasta salad online. In a powerful piece about her experiences, she described the consequences of her unwilling internet stardom.
I began to feel really paranoid. I’m not exactly fond of necking a mayonnaise-sloshed pasta salad on a bumpy Metropolitan line, but I know I’m never going to eat on the tube again. I don’t even want to wear that outfit again – or read the book that the poster commented I was then ‘tucking into’ – because I’m nervous that people from the Facebook group might recognise me. Every time a man I don’t know – because so many of the commenters are men – so much as glances at me on the tube I wonder if he’s in on the joke.
Before each meal, I now wonder how I’m going to look when I eat it. And yeah, maybe I should think about the way I eat, and maybe I shouldn’t be so sloppy, and maybe I should have better manners, but who gave this Facebook group of collected strangers the right to police my behaviour because of one thing I’ve done when I’m on a near-deserted train carriage?
Image courtesy of FacebookDoes she have point? The posts are detailed, showing the time, the tube line and a description of the food that was eaten.
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This week the Daily Telegraph talked to Tony Burke, the man behind the Facebook group. It's a fascinating if rather disturbing interview. Worryingly, he simply couldn't understand why women found the group and the people who contribute and comment on it creepy and instrusive.
First he claimed that what the group was doing was "art", capturing a never to be repeated moment. Then he said that it couldn't be seen as bullying because the person whose photo was being torn to shreds by strangers wasn't named. And that there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with it because the women were in public (apparently the only way to avoid being held up for mockery by random men is to never leave our houses again).
Rather ironically, at first Burke didn't want to provide the Telegraph with a photo of himself, though he later decided to do so (sadly, he wasn't eating a sandwich on a train).
Image Via Huffington PostBut women are fighting back, with everything from parody sites to Tube eat-ins. "I thought the best thing was to get the power. This is about turning it around and getting the power and putting the joke on the lads posting on the page," said Lucy Brisbane McKay, who is organising a "lunch party" on the Circle Line.
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So what do you think of the whole phenomenon? Do you find it creepy? Is it yet another sign of women and their bodies being viewed as public property? Or do you agree with Burke, who told the Telegraph that "people just need to develop a sense of humour, and toughen up a bit"?
