Yet another woman has spoken out against the convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein - who recently was sentenced to 23 years in prison – but sadly, with this, she has been forced to defend why she didn’t voice her concerns sooner. Are we forgetting the difference between victim and perpetrator so quickly?
Actor Kate Beckinsale, who worked with the disgraced film mogul on films including 2001 movie entitled Serendipity, has claimed on Instagram that she was ‘relieved’ about the conviction, adding that Weinstein lured her to his house feigning a ‘play date’ for their children. Instead, she reveals, he lambasted her for wearing a suit on the red carpet and called her a ‘c_nt’. According to Kate, Weinstein said: ‘If I am throwing a red carpet you get in a tight dress, you shake your ass, you shake your tits you do not go down it looking like a fking lesbian you stupid fking c_nt”.’
But while most applauded Kate for expressing her horrifying experience so publicly, many Twitter users were quick to criticise. 'Honestly I don't know why anyone would allow themselves to be put in one of those situations. Just leave,’ one user wrote, prompting Kate to reply: ‘I did. It still happened.’
'Why did you show up is my question?', another user chimed in, forcing Kate to defend herself yet again. ‘He was my boss,’ she wrote. ‘He had not so far been abusive, nor had I seen any evidence on the one movie I had worked on with him. He couched it as a playdate for our kids. I had no idea it wasn't that or that I had done anything that could be perceived as wrong.'
Others critiqued her for ‘bringing her child into a rapist’s house’, while one Twitter user said: ‘Why did America and all the actors and actresses who worked with him glorify him then.' Kate responded: 'He was also very talented, could be funny, generous, creative. And then absolutely monstrous. If all abusers were just awful all the time I think it would be far less confusing and less painful.’
These users are naively forgetting that Weinstein was the manipulator; and the fact that he was, as Kate describes, ‘funny and generous’ at times, shows that he was even more dangerous. Abusers often lull their victims into a false sense of security, and it is this behaviour which is most terrifying.
Let’s not overlook the fact that the film mogul preyed on people who had ambitions and utilised these for his own harrowing means. But ultimately, we are forgetting here that the many women that have spoken up are the victims, and that we should stand together with them, instead of hastily trying to hold other people accountable.
READ MORE: Kate Beckinsale Says Harvey Weinstein Screamed At Her Because She Wore A Suit To A Premiere