Dame Angela Lansbury responds to backlash over her sexual assault comments: 'They were taken brutishly out of context'

[Will42]

Posted: 11/30/17 at 9:46am

Statement of Actress Angela Lansbury Against Sexual Harassment and Abuse of Women

Comments by Lansbury Taken Out of Context In Interview in Radio Times Magazine

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

"There is no excuse whatsoever for men to harass women in an abusive sexual manner.  And, I am devastated that anyone should deem me capable of thinking otherwise.

"Those who have known the quality of my work and the many public statements I have made over the course of my life, must know, that I am a strong supporter of Women's Rights.

"Lastly, I would like to add that I am troubled by how quickly and brutishly some have taken my comments out of context and attempted to blame my generation, my age, or my mindset, without having read the entirety of what I said."

Angela Lansbury

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/statement-of-actress-angela-lansbury-against-sexual-harassment-and-abuse-of-women-300564081.html

[GeorgeandDot]

Posted: 11/30/17 at 11:51am

Aside from the sentence about women needing to take blame, the rest of her statement made sense and was basically her saying that it's a shame that women can't look beautiful and not be treated like a piece of meat and that many men are pigs and need to get all little control. I figured that she must have slipped up on the first sentence and it didn't come out the right way, which it appears is the case. Perhaps what she was trying to say is that women must take action, speak up, and shut this behavior down.

[beaemma]

Posted: 11/30/17 at 3:15pm

Most of the people who attacked Angela Lansbury's initial comments did so on the basis of having read incomplete, clickbait accounts on the internet. Those who did have access to full versions of the original interview probably did not read it carefully or all the way through. I applaud the fact that she didn't evade a difficult question and tried to answer it seriously and honestly, even though she probably didn't have time to carefully prepare the wording of what she said. Actually, the misreading of her statement has created some worthwhile discussions of sexual harassment in the workplace. Miss Lansbury's new response strikes me as just about perfect. She clarifies what she was saying and makes a good point about how the internet can distort information and encourage flying off the handle responses. She also, quite rightly, calls out the ageism in many of the follow-up comments, both negative and positive. 

[newintown]

Posted: 11/30/17 at 3:19pm

"Most of the people who attacked Angela Lansbury's initial comments did so on the basis of having read incomplete, clickbait accounts on the internet. Those who did have access to full versions of the original interview probably did not read it carefully or all the way through."

You can't be saying that people were embracing passionately violent opinions based on infinitesimal and unproved information, can you? What kind of person would do that?

[beaemma]

Posted: 11/30/17 at 3:48pm

Welcome to the internet!

 

[binau]

Posted: 11/30/17 at 5:05pm

I mean it wasn't just a misquoting - I do wonder if she could have tread a little more carefully. For example, perhaps if she is saying that there are things people can do to minimise risk (or on the flip side - increase risk) then it is a fair point - she is just describing the causal process. But I don't know if she should have used the word 'blame'. For example, take the vast majority of Islamic countries in the world - if you are an open gay man you are exposing yourself to a lot of risk for persecution, injury, imprisonment or death. These gay victims should not be to 'blame' for these outcomes - it's the terribly barbaric, backwards religious ideas (one that so called progressives need to actually get progressive about). However, they certainly did have decisions they could make to increase or minimise their risk in this situation. And so, their own actions/behaviours were implicated in the casual process that would potentially lead to terrible outcomes for them - even if in a perfect world they shouldn't have.

Updated On: 11/30/17 at 05:05 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/1/17 at 12:11am

I don't know, qolbinau. Look at some of the other threads here and you'll find the same sort of hysterical responses whether the word "blame" is used or not.

And juries are asked to apportion "blame" all the time, so the concept that one may contribute to misfortunate without being the primary cause is well embedded in the language.

Like you, I avoid the "b-word" out of deference to social convention; but I think we're being (not unreasonably) "politically correct".