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Post by Liberian Girl on Jan 10, 2018 20:13:57 GMT
www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/09/catherine-deneuve-men-should-be-free-hit-on-women-harvey-weinstein-scandal?CMP=share_btn_tw
Catherine Deneuve says men should be 'free to hit on' women French actor signs open letter that claims ‘witch-hunt’ in wake of Harvey Weinstein scandal poses threat to sexual freedom
The revered French actor Catherine Deneuve has hit out at a new “puritanism” sparked by sexual harassment scandals, declaring that men should be “free to hit on” women.
Deneuve was one of about 100 female French writers, performers and academics who wrote an open letter deploring the wave of “denunciations” that has followed claims that the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein raped and sexually assaulted women over decades.
They claimed the “witch-hunt” that followed threatens sexual freedom.
“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or cack-handedly, is not – nor is men being gentlemanly a macho attack,” said the letter published in the newspaper Le Monde.
“Men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss,” said the letter, which was also signed by Catherine Millet, author of the explicit 2002 bestseller The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
Men had been dragged through the mud, they argued, for “talking about intimate subjects during professional dinners or for sending sexually charged messages to women who did not return their attentions”.
The letter attacked feminist social media campaigns like #MeToo and its French equivalent, #BalanceTonPorc (Call out your pig), for unleashing this “puritanical ... wave of purification”.
It claimed that “legitimate protest against the sexual violence that women are subject to, particularly in their professional lives,” had turned into a witch-hunt.
“What began as freeing women up to speak has today turned into the opposite – we intimidate people into speaking ‘correctly’, shout down those who don’t fall into line, and those women who refused to bend [to the new realities] are regarded as complicit and traitors.”
The signatories – who included a porn star-turned-agony aunt – claimed they were defending sexual freedom, for which “the liberty to seduce and importune was essential”.
The Oscar-nominated Deneuve, 74, is best known internationally for playing a bored housewife who spends her afternoons as a prostitute in Luis Buñuel’s classic 1967 film Belle de Jour.
Deneuve has made no secret of her annoyance at social media campaigns to shame men accused of harassing women.
“I don’t think it is the right method to change things, it is excessive,” she said last year, referring to the #MeToo hashtag. “After ‘calling out your pig’ what are we going to have, ‘call our your whore’?”
“Instead of helping women this frenzy to send these (male chauvinist) ‘pigs’ to the abattoir actually helps the enemies of sexual liberty – religious extremists and the worst sort of reactionaries,” the collective of women who signed the letter said.
“As women we do not recognise ourselves in this feminism, which beyond denouncing the abuse of power takes on a hatred of men and of sexuality.”
They insisted that women were “sufficiently aware that the sexual urge is by its nature wild and aggressive. But we are also clear-eyed enough not to confuse an awkward attempt to pick someone up with a sexual attack.”
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TonyR
The Legend Continues
Posts: 8,413
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Post by TonyR on Jan 10, 2018 22:22:59 GMT
Fully agree with her.
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Post by MattyJam on Jan 10, 2018 22:38:16 GMT
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milo
Wondering Who
Posts: 124
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Post by milo on Jan 11, 2018 1:42:23 GMT
She’s clearly missing the point.
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Post by LindavG on Jan 11, 2018 2:32:58 GMT
She’s clearly missing the point. Yes she is, and it makes me so sad to see women undercutting this long-overdue discussion of sexual violence and assault. I feel like people who don't really want to have this discussion just focus on the excesses of the #MeToo movement and pretend like that's what all the outrage is about. No, it's not about touching someone's knee once, come on Just stop giving so much attention to those who distract from the real issues - and that includes female celebrities who jump on the #MeToo bandwagon when their experience barely qualifies as harassment. There is a real problem of sexual violence against women in our societies and it needs to be addressed. It shouldn't be taken for granted that women are afraid to be out alone at night or subjected to degrading comments when they walk past a group of young men on the street (which I guarantee you almost every woman has experienced, no matter how they dress or act). But the backlash against this movement has already started and pretty soon it will be framed as reasonable people vs. those radical feminazis who think a man should be fired if he looks at his female colleague the wrong way. The same thing happened to Black Lives Matter, which went from a legitimate protest against police killing unarmed black men to whether athletes should kneel during the national anthem. Anything to avoid a real and difficult conversation.
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Post by mjjfan810 on Jan 11, 2018 6:17:22 GMT
She’s clearly missing the point. Yes she is, and it makes me so sad to see women undercutting this long-overdue discussion of sexual violence and assault. I feel like people who don't really want to have this discussion just focus on the excesses of the #MeToo movement and pretend like that's what all the outrage is about. No, it's not about touching someone's knee once, come on Just stop giving so much attention to those who distract from the real issues - and that includes female celebrities who jump on the #MeToo bandwagon when their experience barely qualifies as harassment. There is a real problem of sexual violence against women in our societies and it needs to be addressed. It shouldn't be taken for granted that women are afraid to be out alone at night or subjected to degrading comments when they walk past a group of young men on the street (which I guarantee you almost every woman has experienced, no matter how they dress or act). But the backlash against this movement has already started and pretty soon it will be framed as reasonable people vs. those radical feminazis who think a man should be fired if he looks at his female colleague the wrong way. The same thing happened to Black Lives Matter, which went from a legitimate protest against police killing unarmed black men to whether athletes should kneel during the national anthem. Anything to avoid a real and difficult conversation. The trouble is though, as you acknowledged in your post, these protest movements end up ruining themselves, as they get derailed by attention seekers and women who are out to exploit it to serve their own agenda. The whole notion of accusers speaking out and going public with their horror stories using Twitter as a platform is also very troubling. If it’s serious, contact the police. If it’s workplace harassment, tell your manager. Women need to go through the proper channels if they want to be taken seriously because anybody can say anything on Twitter and can tarnish someone’s name unfairly without a shred of evidence, which is just wrong. It’s the same fallacy as the notion of “always believe the victim” or “children never lie about abuse.” People DO lie, some women do exaggerate and enjoy playing the martyr, for sympathy, money or attention. These people are the ones responsible for undermining real victims, who have a legitimate case that needs to be heard. Unfortunately, sexual harassment is a difficult term to define and can often be in the eye of the beholder. Of course, there are definitely lines that can be crossed, but what one women may interpret as just a bit of harmless fun, another may interpret entirely differently. This is not a black and white issue, there are many shades of grey and therein lies the problem with the MeToo movement, as they take it to the extreme and it therefore comes across as a bunch of bitter women out for revenge.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2018 11:12:35 GMT
In what has to be a first time ever, I agree with Tony AND Matty.
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Post by respect77 on Jan 21, 2018 13:34:05 GMT
I applause Margaret Atwood for her level-minded comments as well. Unfortunately people still don't get it why it is dangerous to the whole society when a lynch-mob mentality takes over. It just isn't right that in this hysteria someone can tweet something about a guy and the next day that guy loses his job and his whole life is ruined. That based on nothing but a mare accusation. Not based on something that was investigated and proven. I can't believe that Atwood was attacked over her level-minded, fair comments. www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/15/margaret-atwood-feminist-backlash-metoo
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