By JOANNA WILLIAMS, SPIKED, EDUCATION EDITOR
So much as question the #MeToo movement and you'll be mobbed.
Another day, another outrage. It seems even news of a royal wedding can’t derail the all-consuming sexual-harassment panic. But in a surprise move, we’re not directing two minutes of hate at another lecherous politician unable to keep his hands off a reporter’s knee. Nope. Now it’s Dame Angela Lansbury in the stocks. That’s right, the twinkle-eyed 92-year-old star of Murder, She Wrote stands accused of 2017’s most heinous crime of all: victim-blaming.
Despite an acting career that began long before those now pouring on the vitriol were born, Lansbury has confessed to never having suffered sexual harassment at the hands of a Hollywood producer. To make matters worse, she neither wholeheartedly denounced those accused nor applauded the bravery and innocence of those coming forward with accusations of harassment. Instead, Lansbury told the Radio Times: ‘There are two sides to this coin.’
And there we have it: heresy in one short sentence. Lansbury will by now know that in the eyes of the righteous, the puritans, the keyboard activists, there are never two sides to a story. The women coming forward are always victims to be believed with absolute certainty. The men, on the other hand, the vile accused, are to be denounced and banished from public life in perpetuity.
Lansbury veered from this script. She said, ‘We have to own up to the fact that women, since time immemorial, have gone out of their way to make themselves attractive. And unfortunately it has backfired on us – and this is where we are today.’ She continued, ‘We must sometimes take blame, women. I really do think that. Although it’s awful to say we can’t make ourselves look as attractive as possible without being knocked down and raped.’
This is all the ammunition a baying mob now needs. Cue a monumental Twitterstorm denouncing Lansbury for being old, ignorant, out-of-touch, suffering with dementia, a rape apologist, a victim-blamer, a gas-lighter. One droll tweet sums up the collective mood:
*Sees Angela Lansbury is trending.*
‘OH NO! SHE’D BETTER NOT BE DEAD!’
‘Oh wait! It’s worse.’
In the eyes of 2017’s social-media chorus, it’s better to be dead than to express an opinion that falls beyond what the righteous have declared acceptable. If these outrage-mongers ditched the euphemism and came out from behind their screens they’d be sharpening pitchforks and chanting ‘Kill the witch!’.
The fact that Lansbury makes clear that ‘there’s no excuse’ for the way men like Harvey Weinstein behaved is ignored. Her claim that individual women are not at fault likewise counts for nothing in the eyes of those now lining up to shout ‘blasphemy!’.
For what it’s worth, I don’t share Lansbury’s view – it lets rapists abdicate responsibility for their actions to say men are rendered uncontrollable when faced with a beautiful woman. But discussing power and responsibility in an industry where, rightly or wrongly, many women knowingly market themselves on the basis of their looks and sexuality should not be off limits.
Lansbury is not the first high-profile woman to be accused of victim-blaming. Chrissie Hynde, Anne Robinson and Ann Leslie are just some who have been charged with the same crime. Twittermobs now know that the siren call of ‘victim-blaming’ provides the cue for a pile-on. But it’s a disingenuous allegation. Neither Lansbury nor any of the others found guilty has said a particular woman was to blame for a specific crime carried out against her. In fact, they’ve all gone out of their way to argue against this. (Except for Hynde who, arguably, victim-blamed herself.)
The victim-blaming accusation reinforces the idea that women, all women, are victims. Women are labelled as victims before cases are tried in a court of law, even though they should be called ‘accusers’. What’s more, the charge of victim-blaming presents women as entirely passive – they are in no way held responsible for their actions. Instead they are simply to be believed. In reality, sometimes women – like men – do stupid things. Of course, this does not mean women should expect to be raped or attacked. But the idea that women are only ever guileless and unworldly is demeaning. It reduces women to the status of children.
The charge of victim-blaming serves a further purpose. It shuts down discussion. It’s worth keeping in mind that Lansbury was asked a question and, in response, expressed her opinion. Lansbury hasn’t sexually harassed anyone. Yet the extent of the outrage presents her words as morally equivalent to an act of physical abuse. This online mobbing chills public debate and makes other people think twice before challenging the consensus.
This Christmas holiday I’ll be watching Dame Angela starring in the BBC’s new adaptation of Little Women with my 11-year-old daughter. And I’ll raise a glass to a fantastic actress and a terrific role model.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
I was not offended by Angela Lansbury’s recent comment about women also being to some extent responsible for some sexual harassment. Of course it is men who bear the brunt of most of the responsibility, but I have also wondered why women news anchors, here in the US often show cleavage while men are buttoned up to the neck with ties, and suits that do not hint of sexuality… That is not to say that women are responsible for men behaving badly, but it doesnt help to be inappropriately sexy…. there is a time and place to be sexy… but… Read more »
Angela Lansbury’s words were not intended to let off hardcore pedaophiles, rapists and other assorted hardcore misogynists…. She was speaking of the entertainment world, where women are forced into looking a certain way… and then exploited for looking that way…. Society has to change how it perceives women. In traditional theatre actresses played complex characters, whose identities were not dependent on their sexuality. In the modern day entertainment business accesses have been forced into looking a certain way into sexualized objects, all of which has little to do with acting. This has to stop before we can be rid of… Read more »
Does anyone know how to disable spell checker?
In the modern day entertainment business accesses have been forced into looking a certain way into sexualized objects, all of which has little to do with acting.
should read
In the modern day entertainment business actresses have been forced into looking a certain way into sexualized objects, all of which has little to do with acting.
In fact sex has little to do with all this, but abuse of power has everything to do with it. And that is what everyone should be fighting against.
It is abuse of power that is most often experienced by women. It is the eternal hierarchy, god over man, man over woman, and humans over animals… Sexual harassment and violence are an expression of domination typical of patricarchical societies…. condoned and approved by patriarchical dominionist religions…
Generically mysogyny is abuse of power, but there are specific forms of expression that must be challenged.
When you deck yourself out to draw attention to your sexually, some times you draw more attention than desired ….. or maybe the attention desired. A reasonable conclusion on Angela’s part. I see nothing to say Angela meant it was ok to predator women (or men) using their power of position.
It takes two to tango… While there is nothing in Lansbury’s statement that suggests it is the fault of women, there is in your…. Just because someone decks themselves out, does not mean they are fair game….
Bravo for Eisenbud. But there are some limits and the way Western women went into Arab bazaars undressed according to Moslem customs with short sleeved blouses and hot pants shows a disdain for local customs and a contempt for the sensitivities of colonized populations that should not then be a surprise that they were touched and spit upon. Which shows that all is relative to the symbols expressed and even a sexual unwanted remark is a sign of abused power.
A great deal is censored out of the media marketed to liberals. We really don’t all Stand in Solidarity merely to protect the advantages of the better off, the middle/working class. We don’t buy into the anti-Russian propaganda, or the anti-Israel propaganda. We don’t stereotype low-income and poor white people as a collection of ignorant right wingers who are undeserving of the most basic human rights (UN’s UDHR) of food and shelter. The list goes on. Maybe you’ll get the point.