#MeToo is just ballyhoo and creates career rape victims, says Germaine

GERMAINE Greer has attacked Hollywood’s Me Too movement as ‘ballyhoo’ and warned it could breed women who use public revelations of sexual assault to become ‘career rapees’.

The feminist author accused the A-list stars who support the campaign of putting on a ‘staged performance’.

The Me Too campaign – using social media to publicly highlight sexual harassment by men in powerful positions – began last year after more than 80 women came forward to accuse Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein of rape, sexual assault and harassment over three decades.

But Miss Greer, 79, appeared to call the women ‘career rapees’ – using their Me Too revelations to keep themselves in the public eye – as she lambasted them for not coming forward sooner.

She said if she had been attacked she ‘wouldn’t have been sitting around being quiet and keeping a secret’.

She added: ‘It’s pointless now bringing up this stuff, when most of it no action can be taken. Why wait 20 years?’

She told Radio 4’s Today programme that the 84 women who have launched cases against Weinstein – who denies all allegations of wrongdoing – have had ‘extraordinary exposure’.

Speaking about the effect of potential trials, Miss Greer said: ‘The amount of legal muscle that will be used to defend these people is massive, and I’m concerned for damage limitation rather than maximisation. Rather than wrecking people’s lives, so they become career rapees.

‘There’s an aspect of the whole performance that is ballyhoo and Hollywood. I thought the Golden Globes performance, when everyone wore black, was amazingly stagey and contrived. What we need is to sort out the law regarding rape and to sort out our concept of what it is.’

But listeners were quick to criticise the Australian author, with some accusing her of blaming the victims of sexual assault.

Katharine Sacks-Jones, direcwomen

‘It’s pointless now. Why wait 20 years?’

tor of women’s charity Agenda, said: ‘Struggling with this Germaine Greer interview. Rambling, incoherent and lacking any answers, but it sounds like she’s saying: rape shouldn’t be a crime.’

Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, added: ‘Her victim-blaming, terming “career rapees”, grading “serious sexual assault”, ignores the vast scale of violence against women and girls, and that women standing up to their abusers is an expression of our power.’

At the weekend, Monty Python star Terry Gilliam, 77, said he believed the Me Too movement has morphed into ‘mob rule’, and that ‘ambitious’ actresses had willingly spent time alone with Weinstein to further their careers. Calling the Me Too reaction ‘ugly and simplistic’, he said: ‘It’s like when mob rule takes over. They are carrying their torches and they are going to burn down Frankenstein’s castle. It is a world of victims.’

Gilliam also voiced support for actor Matt Damon, saying it was ‘crazy’ that he was ‘beaten to death’ – heavily criticised – by supporters of the Me Too campaign for pointing out there was a difference between ‘patting someone on the butt and rape’.

The Weinstein Company movie and TV studio has filed for bankruptcy and announced it is cancelling any non-disclosure agreements signed by Harvey Weinstein’s alleged victims.

Weinstein was fired in October from his post as chief executive of the firm he founded with his brother, Bob, in 2005. The company said: ‘It has been reported Harvey Weinstein used non-disclosure agreements as a secret weapon to silence his accusers.

‘Effective immediately, those “agreements” end. No one should be afraid to speak out or coerced to stay quiet.’