Over the weekend Shakira was upskirted at LIV, a nightclub in Miami. Shakira and other Latina artists like Anitta and Danna Paola were filming for Shakira’s upcoming single Soltera (translation: single). During a segment where Shakira was dancing on stage, she was seen scolding a man in the audience who attempted to film up her dress. After an initial scolding, she briefly continued performing before leaving the stage, visibly upset.
Upskirting is when a person attempts to take a photo up someone’s dress or skirt. It is a serious crime that has been a criminal offence in the UK for the last 5 years following a campaign led by Gina Martin. Martin was upskirted at a festival in 2017 and when she learned it was not yet a criminal offence she led a grassroots campaign to get upskirting into British law.
It is yet to be confirmed if the man in question was removed by security, but it was clear his behaviour had an impact on Shakira. Other photos and videos from the night, including a teaser of the song posted by Shakira, show her and her friends enjoying their time dancing and having a girls’ night. Unfortunately, it is not a surprise that even the most powerful women with security teams are unable to enjoy a night out with friends without encountering misogynistic men in action.
We’ve all been there before, you’re out with the girls and suddenly you feel a hand squeeze your bum on the dancefloor. Maybe a man’s hand grazes across your breasts just a touch too long to be accidental. Every girl I know has experienced something like that before. Plenty of girls I know have also been spiked in nightclubs. It’s the main reason I stopped going out clubbing, something I actively enjoyed, but wasn’t worth the constant harassment that is experienced in a setting where the aim is to have fun. I distinctly remember going out with my friends for my 20th birthday and coming home early after I was assaulted by six different men in the same club. It is a harsh reality that even in an environment with professional film equipment and security, as was the case with Shakira’s time at the club, men will violate women’s bodies and their personal space.
This is not the first time that Shakira herself has experienced toxic misogyny in recent years. Following the release of her global hit Shakira: BZRP Music Sessions Vol. 53, she was harshly criticised, especially by football fans, for speaking candidly about her ex-partner and his infidelity. Before her split from Gerard Pique (the ex in question), regularly opposing football fans to his team would make placards and sing chants about Shakira that were vulgar, graphic, and sexually violent.
Shakira also recently had an encounter with a stalker who travelled across the US to her Miami address from Waco, Texas. He was later reprimanded in custody, but not before putting the lives of Shakira and her children in danger, despite being known to police where he lived. Her experiences are not at all unique, around the same time a man stalking Taylor Swift was arrested multiple times outside her New York apartment.
For musicians like Shakira who choose to perform and entertain large audiences, there is often a feeling from those watching that they have some kind of ownership over the artist and their body. Other people were seen attempting to grab Shakira’s ankles as she performed at the club, something that could have easily led to a serious injury if she were to lose her balance. Chappell Roan recently spoke out against the possessiveness of fans toward their favourite artists and, while most of her audience supported and applauded her decision to set clear boundaries, a significant majority claimed Roan was being ungrateful for her platform.
Several news outlets are reporting about Shakira’s reaction rather than the fact this is a clear violation of a woman’s privacy and safety. Many are citing her as being ‘angry’ and ‘storming off the stage’ as if she should be anything but furious that something like this happened to her. Others are calling the offender a fan, as a true fan of Shakira I can tell you that genuine fans do not conduct themselves in this way. The headlines around what happened are just the latest in a litany of examples of news outlets reporting about crimes against women in blatantly sexist and ignorant ways.
A woman’s body belongs only to herself. It does not matter if that woman is a stranger on the street or the most famous person on earth. The incident with Shakira reminds us that, frustratingly, no woman is safe from men crossing their boundaries. While Shakira handled the situation well, asserting herself and removing herself from the situation when she realised it was unsafe for her, it should not have happened in the first place. Upskirting is a crime in Florida, one which can result in up to 15 years in prison if one is a repeat offender, yet still in such a public and documentable environment a man felt comfortable to act in such a way.
What does this say about our culture when men are emboldened by patriarchy to behave like this? Shakira is not the first, nor will she be the last woman to experience upskirting, it is a pervasive issue. In some places, such as Japan, upskirting is such an issue that phones sold in the country automatically make a shutter sound when taking a photo. Phones sold in Japan are programmed so this feature cannot be disabled, this has had the unwanted side effect of creating a black market for foreign phones explicitly for upskirting. Similar crimes are on the rise in South Korea where a national deepfake ring was recently discovered on Telegram.
Upskirting is one of many symptoms of ingrained rape culture, an expression of a deeply set standard that women’s bodies are public property. We cannot minimise its impact and what it means to upskirt another person, Shakira did not deserve to experience it. No woman does.