Weinstein accusers turn against actress
Ministers, campaigners and Harvey Weinstein’s accusers have led a backlash against Catherine Deneuve and other French women who signed an open letter describing the #MeToo movement as a puritan witch-hunt.
The actresses Rose McGowan and Asia Argento tweeted their contempt yesterday (Wednesday) for the letter, published in the French newspaper Le Monde.
McGowan, 44, star of the American TV series Charmed, has alleged that she was raped by Mr Weinstein and ignored by Amazon Studios when she raised her complaints.
‘‘This is not a witch-hunt,’’ she wrote. ‘‘Get it straight.’’
Argento, 42, an Italian actress who says she was raped by Mr Weinstein when she was 21, said: ‘‘Deneuve and other French women tell the world how their interiorised misogyny has lobotomised them to the point of no return.’’
In France, politicians including Marlene Schiappa, 35, President Macron’s minister for women’s rights, described the letter as ‘‘deeply offensive and false’’ for excusing men who abused women.
Thirty feminists sent a statement to Radio France accusing signatories to the letter of being dangerously out of touch.
Campaigners in Britain, including Caroline Criado Perez, said it painted abusive men as victims.
However, Julia Hartley-Brewer, the Talk Radio presenter, defended Deneuve, saying that #MeToo did not empower women.
‘‘No one is saying it’s OK for men to grope women in the work place, but we’re in danger of going from one extreme to the other,’’ Hartley-Brewer, 49, told The Times. ‘‘The reality is most women don’t experience sexual harassment at work or anywhere else in their lives. Most men don’t sexually harass.
‘‘The Harvey Weinstein activists are . . . treating women as perpetual victims, infantilising them, as if they’re incapable of taking care of themselves.’’
The letter, signed by 100 women, said that men’s careers were being ruined when ‘‘their only wrong was touching a knee, stealing a kiss, [or] talking of intimate matters at a professional dinner’’. It said: ‘‘Insistent or clumsy pick-up attempts are not a crime and gallantry is not male aggression.’’
Critics pointed out that Deneuve, 74, has supported the film director Roman Polanski, who is wanted by Californian prosecutors for the alleged rape of Samantha Geimer, who was 13, in 1977. Others highlighted Brigitte Lahaie, 62, a former porn actress who became a radio host, and Catherine Millet, an art critic who wrote a bestseller about group sex and partner-swapping.
Ms Schiappa criticised a claim in the letter that women should not confront men who rub against them on public transport because it went against efforts to convince women to report incidents of groping to the police.