‘Attractive’ women must take some of the blame for harassment - actress

BRITAIN: Women are partially responsible for sexual harassment because they have ‘‘gone out of their way to make themselves attractive’’, actress Angela Lansbury has claimed.

Lansbury, 92, argued that the desire to be sexually appealing had ‘‘backfired’’, resulting in attacks from predatory males. ‘‘We must sometimes take blame, women,’’ she told the Radio Times. ‘‘I really do think that.’’

Lansbury is best known for playing Jessica Fletcher, an amateur detective, in the long-running crime drama Murder, She Wrote.

Speaking about sexual harassment in the entertainment industry for the first time since the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, the British-born actress said that she had never received inappropriate sexual advances from male executives during her Hollywood career. While acknowledging that there was ‘‘no excuse’’ for sexual harassment, Lansbury suggested that its prevalence was in part a consequence of women defining themselves as sex objects

‘‘There are two sides to this coin,’’ 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.’’

Conceding the controversial nature of her remarks, she added: ‘‘It’s awful to say we can’t make ourselves look as attractive as possible without being knocked down and raped.’’ In the interview, Lansbury made clear that no blame should be attached to individual victims of harassment, and that women should not have to ‘‘be prepared’’ for sexual misconduct in the workplace. Nonetheless, her comments risk provoking a backlash from the dozens of young women who have been emboldened to come forward with their experiences of sexual assault in response to the Weinstein case.

The scandal has spread through the entertainment industry and politics, with Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, Roy Price, the head of Amazon Studios, and the Pixar founder John Lasseter among the most prominent individuals forced to stand down. Kevin Spacey was dropped from House of Cards, the Netflix series, and replaced in a Ridley Scott film after dozens of young men alleged inappropriate sexual conduct.

Lansbury is not alone among women in suggesting that both sexes share responsibility for sexual harassment in the workplace. Last month Anne Robinson, the television presenter, was accused of victim blaming after urging women to take a ‘‘more robust attitude to men behaving badly’’. In a BBC interview she said: ‘‘Bullies

"It's awful to say we can't make ourselves look as attractive as possible without being knocked down and raped." Angela Lansbury

only operate where they think there is a weakness. I do sort of feel that women are much more fractured on the wheel of life than maybe we were 40 years ago.’’

Lansbury stars alongside Sir Michael Gambon in a BBC adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, which will be broadcast in three parts over Christmas. She told Radio Times that this could be one of her final television roles, saying: ‘‘How much more I’ll do, I’ve no idea.’’

Lansbury was born in London and moved to the US with her mother in 1940 to escape the Blitz and now has joint British, US and Irish citizenship. – The Times