I really hope Angela Lansbury was misquoted

[adamgreer]

Ugh. Victim blaming is never ok, even when you're Angela Lansbury.

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/angela-lansbury-blames-attractive-women-for-harassment_us_5a1d5cd1e4b0e2ddcbb28d7a?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

[givesmevoice]

She tried to walk it back to make sure she's not excusing the behavior. And she's 92. I'm not exactly looking to Angela Lansbury to be a leading voice on this issue.

[MoveOnGypsy]

Exactly. Her age has alot to do with this. Let's also not discount her internalized oppression from years in the Hollywood industry. Women were and are completely abused to the point where they blame themselves most of the time. She's internalizing what she's been told for decades. 

[BroadwayNYC2]

Don’t go easy on her, call her the hell out.

[henrikegerman]

“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,” she continued."

Wow.  I really hope she was misquoted.  Because that is one hell of a statement.  Is she suggesting that she herself was knocked down and raped?  That straight men are incapable of treating attractive women with respect?  That rape is a crime of erotic passion rather than control?  That women are not naturally attractive and do not invite desire without the kind of affectation that they should avoid?

Moreover, it does not appear that Ms. Lansbury has any mental impairment. The statement is articulate.

But I do agree with Moveongypsy that studio system internalized oppression may well have a hand in this position.

[JennH]

I won't necessarily defend her, but we all must remember she's only a product of that very era where this was considered so damn normal, that no one thought anything of it, herself included. 

 No, this harassment/casing couch thing is by no means OK, never was and never will be, but when she went though her career in an era where this was the norm and women were "less than" even more than they still are now, I can at least understand her mindset. She's still wrong though, and hopefully she'll one day see that women should have never been subjected to any of this. We're all only products of the era of society we grew up in. 

[Dollypop]

I'm going to side with Angela on this.

I'm very involved in my church and get to see what women consider "fashionable" at wedding ceremonies and funerals. Good God, there's a lot of flesh showing these days! I'm not saying you should dress like a nun, but a touch of modesty would be in order when you're in a church.

If you're gonna dress that revealingly in church, you're asking for trouble at the reception, where the booze runs freely.

[RippedMan]

I can understand that, but it's the same way I feel about certain religions. Like, oh because men can't control themselves you have to be all covered up? How stupid.

[haterobics]

Ironically, you link to the article that removes the quote where she address victims: 

She added that the fault does not lie with individual victims: “Should women be prepared for this? No, they shouldn’t have to be. There’s no excuse for that. And I think it will stop now - it will have to. I think a lot of men must be very worried at this point.”

[GeorgeandDot]

Teach your sons to have control and to be a gentleman. People (women especially) shouldn't have to worry that their clothes will provoke attack.

It's such an 1850's way of thinking.

Wear whatever you want. Just don't smell.

[Miles2Go2]

This:

https://youtu.be/51-hepLP8J4

[uncageg]

adamgreer said: "Ugh. Victim blaming is never ok, even when you're Angela Lansbury.



https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/angela-lansbury-blames-attractive-women-for-harassment_us_5a1d5cd1e4b0e2ddcbb28d7a?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009"

 

Those words again...victim blaming. Wake up. They may not all be "victims".

 

[qolbinau]

 This would solve it. 



 

[PatrickDennis92]

Cookie Monster blue? I couldn’t control myself.

[yankeefan7]

"'m going to side with Angela on this.

I'm very involved in my church and get to see what women consider "fashionable" at wedding ceremonies and funerals. Good God, there's a lot of flesh showing these days! I'm not saying you should dress like a nun, but a touch of modesty would be in order when you're in a church.

If you're gonna dress that revealingly in church, you're asking for trouble at the reception, where the booze runs freely."

There has been a lot of flesh showing since the 1960's, remember the beginning of the miniskirt.  Anyway, that is no excuse for men to sexually attack a woman.

 

[Dollypop]

I'm not defending the men involved in these cases. I'm suggesting that women should take precautions here, knowing how a revealing outfit could tempt a guy. You take precautions.

Look, I'm visually impaired and night driving is a horror for me. I sing in a choir that rehearses 6 miles from my home and the roads are rural and twisting--and go through deer-heavy woods. I know what the problems can be here, so I take the PRECAUTION of driving another route that takes me five miles out of my way but is straighter, better lit and not populated by deer.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

[JSquared2]

Dollypop said: "I'm not defending the men involved in these cases. I'm suggesting that women should take precautions here, knowing how a revealing outfit could tempt a guy. You take precautions.

Look, I'm visually impaired and night driving is a horror for me. I sing in a choir that rehearses 6 miles from my home and the roads are rural and twisting--and go through deer-heavy woods. I know what the problems can be here, so I take the PRECAUTION of driving another route that takes me five miles out of my way but is straighter, better lit and not populated by deer.

Do you understand what I'm saying?"

 

No --- not at all.  Something about women in skimpy outfits shouldn't be driving to church when there are deer around?

Also, you shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car --- especially at night!

 

[GavestonPS]

I don't know why we lost so many posts, but I'll try again. I realize I may take some heat for this but I'm a big boy.

I think Angela was merely exercising a little common sense. It really makes no sense that (some) women spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year to make themselves sexually attractive and then think it should be actionable if anyone mentions how nice they look.

Then substitute "However" for "Although" and the rest of her statement is to the effect that "However, no one should be chased down and raped because she makes an effort to be attractive." Is there really anything controversial here?

I'm sure she would also object to quid pro quo sexual harassment (where favors are offered or demanded in return for sexual behavior).

But I spent a lot of my life working in large corporate law firms where the standards of dress are quite different for each gender. The smartest women wear corporate-appropriate attire (and work extra hours to get a promotion), as do ALL of the men (nothing more revealing is allowed men). But some women do wear very short skirts and low-plunging necklines. It their choice, in my opinion.

However, the popular tendency to blame all sexuality in the workplace on the men just isn't realistic. I'm not empowered to speak for Angela, but that's what I read in her remarks.

It should be obvious the law hasn't settled yet when the same remark by a man to his female colleague may be harassment or not merely based on HER mindset. Is the guy required to be a telepath?

 

[Miles2Go2]

[SonofRobbieJ]

When you tell women to take responsibility for the men who harass, abuse, assault and/or rape them, you are perpetuating the problem.  You are offering nothing helpful.  You are absolving men of blame.  

Seriously?  Your advice is 'Don't dress like that cause you might tempt a guy' rather than 'Hey guy...don't rape.'

You also just compared having a visual impairment to having a vagina.  How about you NOT say anything to women on this topic because, believe me, by the time they're 13 years old, women already know all about this.  How about you simply listen and then figure out if your behavior has added to this.  That is what I've been doing.  I find that I'm learning a lot, which will make me a better advocate for stopping the culture that has been utterly pervasive in and out of the entertainment industry.  

[henrikegerman]

"Although it’s awful to say we can’t make ourselves look as attractive as possible without being knocked down and raped."

I never thought of this before, but Gaveston got me thinking.  This statement can be read two different and very opposed way.  One is that what Lansbury was about to say was "awful" but in her mind true.  The other is that she's distancing herself from the main clause because it's not only awful but inappropriate and wrong.

Now that I consider that second reading, I can almost hear Lansbury putting it that way, and so I think that may very well have been her meaning.  Not a misquote but a quote capable of wide misinterpretation.

"It should be obvious the law hasn't settled yet when the same remark by a man to his female colleague may be harassment or not merely based on HER mindset. Is the guy required to be a telepath?"

Not an expert on this area of law. But the oft-used phrase "unwanted sexual advance" seems very problematic to me as a keystone of wrongdoing.  In any escalating series of sexual overtures there is almost always an initial advance.  Sometimes the other party has made it clear that that advance will be welcome.  But at other times there is uncertainty as to how that "initial advance" might be received.  In which case, how is the party initiating that first advance to know whether the "first move" will be "wanted" or "unwanted?"  Hell, in the real world, the party receiving that "first advance" may not even be certain how she or he feels about it, whether she or he wants it for sure, doesn't want it for sure, or is unclear about how she or he feels about it (the jury may still be out; or it may merely be flattering or intriguing but not a total greenlight).   And if what has preceded that "first move" in the other party's behavior makes "wanting" the "mover's move" fairly obvious,  that seems a very subjective determination on the part of the mover.  And if the movee's prior behavior makes the move clearly welcome, isn't what the movee has presented also a "first move?"  And, if so, how would the movee know that their "first move" (or "pre-first move" would be wanted?

Sometimes, I think this way of thinking about it is retrogressive and sexist.  That it relies for a foundation on outdated if somewhat adjusted notions that men always want sex and that it's up to the woman to make her receptiveness to an overture known - that there is nothing untoward or threatening about the woman making her interest known but that there is something agressive about the man being the first to somehow broach the subject of desire.  It's as if we went from an era in which no good "girl" would behave in that way (making her interest known) to an era in which no gentleman would make the first move without getting complete assurance from the woman that such a move would be welcome; that a woman who has exhibited no overt sexual interest should be presumed to not be interested in a man (i.e. that only women who show such an overt interest could be romantically or sexually interested - problematic and resting on outdated standards of "sexual" and "chaste" women), and that the power, which used to be entirely with men has now perversely switched to women (at least when this is all happening legally - which is not to suggest that it does not often happens otherwise); and how does this apply when the two parties are not of opposite gender?

I am putting this out there not to defend any of the clearl allegations of impropriety against Weinstein, Rose, Spacey etc.., but to ask how the rules apply in less clear circumstances.  Is it always wrong for a man to make an advance twoard a woman in a workplace unless the woman has already made clear her interest?  If so, how is the woman making clear her interest not perhaps a potentially unwanted sexual advance toward the man itself?  Or is this rule not about male v female but about someone in a position of authority versus someone operating "under" that authority?

Either way, if an advance by itself is not what makes it unlawful but rather that advance's being "unwanted," how is the person who makes the advance supposed to know that the move is wanted or not until it's been made and responded to?

Again, these questions may not be significant under the rules as they now exist (my understanding of the rules may be very incomplete), but the media coverage is certainly making it sound like "unwanted" is the dispositive factor.  That seems a very problematic standard as it in many circumstances would, as Gaveston said, require the initial mover to be telepathic.


 

[greygarden]

For goodness sake everybody get (a) a life (b) a sense of proportion and (c) some common sense.

[John Adams]

GavestonPS said: "I think Angela was merely exercising a little common sense. [...] substitute "However" for "Although" and the rest of her statement is to the effect that "However, no one should be chased down and raped because she makes an effort to be attractive." Is there really anything controversial here?"

DollyPop said: "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Dollypop, yes, I do. Gaveston, I'm in the same camp as you.

I don't believe that Angela Landsbury is insisting that everyone agree with her view, neither is she speaking in absolutes, nor directing her opinion toward any single, specific person. I don't find any example of "victim blaming" in her opinion.

 

[henrikegerman]

Well one interpretation is that a woman who doesn't go out of her way to look attractive is in no danger of rape.  

While that may not be victim-blaming, it's simply wrong and reinforces a fundamental misconception about sexual violence.

[Miles2Go2]