These Women Wish You'd Stop Taking Pictures of Them Eating on the Tube

Who knew the sight of women eating could cause so much controversy? This week the London-based media has been debating a Facebook group showing just that. With over 21,000 members, the Women Who Eat on Tubes group features candid shots of women using a trip on London's subway system to catch up with a meal. As the group grew, comments on its pages became more overt in their latent misogyny, as if there was something inherently grotesque in a woman having an appetite and being in need of some food. To make the intrusions greater, the photos' captions also identified when and on which tube line they were taken, and what the woman was eating, as this journalist who featured on the site learned.

Of course, the group is just one of various candid photo sites currently doing the rounds. It's not entirely dissimilar to the romanticized images of young women of Buenos Aires Chicas Bondi or its male London equivalent, the tumblr and Twitter account Tubecrush. It also has some kinship with public behavior shaming sites like Singapore's STOMP – though that wouldn't exonerate it from charges of creepy intrusion – even though eating on London’s Tube is neither uncommon nor against any particular rule.