Legendary actress Angela Lansbury stepped on a hornet’s nest of outrage earlier in the week when she commented that women should “sometimes take the blame” for sexual harassment. While there’s no doubt she did say that, the actress responded in a statement that her words were taken out of context and ignored in their entirety.
The reactions to her initial comments were not kind and echoed criticisms that women have faced over sexual harassment for years. When you drop a comment that even remotely sounds like a woman is “asking for it,” it is bound to trigger the type of knee-jerk outrage we saw. Lansbury felt the need to clarify what she had said and made clear that she was not blaming women for sexual harassment according to Entertainment Weekly:
“There is no excuse whatsoever for men to harass women in an abusive sexual manner,” she said in a statement released Wednesday evening. “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.”
Lansbury wasn’t finished after clearing up the confusion over her previous comments. She also lectured people on the internet and the criticism they levied against her once her interview went viral:
“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.”
For some, any type of victim-blaming is unacceptable and Lansbury’s comments came too close to that for many people. She is also missing the fact that the internet is not known for patience.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)