For the first time since accusing Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of raping her, actress Rose McGowan spoke out, blasting the pussy-grabbing culture saying it cannot and will not stand.
“I have been maligned, and you know what? I’m just like you,” the actress told the cheering audience at the Women’s Convention in Detroit, Michigan.
“Because what happened to me, behind the scenes, happens to all of us in this society and that cannot stand and it will not stand.”
Watch here:
“Good morning, women, allies.
“I have been silenced for 20 years. I have been slut-shamed. I have been harassed. I have been maligned, and you know what? I’m just like you.
Because what happened to me, behind the scenes, happens to all of us in this society and that cannot stand and it will not stand.
The scarlet letter is theirs, it is not ours. We are pure, we are strong, we are brave and we will fight. Pussies grab back, women grab back. We speak, we yell, we march, we are here, we will not go away. My name is Rose McGowan and I am brave and I am you.”
In 1997, McGowan reached a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein after he allegedly raped her in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival. Weinstein denies that he has had non-consensual sex.
Weinstein continued to be a very powerful man in the film industry, even though his path is littered with accusations of sexual harassment and assault.
As I have been writing since sexual harassment became a thing that was no longer going to be tolerated with the recent Fox News scandals, sexual harassment happens everywhere, not just Fox News. To everyone, but the most powerful people.
The conservative culture does more than the liberal culture to support and cover up for the general sins of the patriarch, and indeed the Republican Party’s President is a confessed sexual assaulter which doesn’t seem to even faze supposed “family values” Republicans, but sadly still, the cultural bias against women is not parsed by party.
That is why McGowan said “Pussies grab back…. we speak… we are here… I am brave and I am you” at the Women’s Convention.
We are here. The Pussy Grabber in Chief has done this one service for our country; his brazen glee in assaulting women and the pile up of men and women supporting his attempt to write his assaults off as “locker room talk” has compelled women from all over to speak up. To be seen and heard.
Women matter. They are human beings and should not be treated like inanimate objects without feelings or rights.
Does that sentence sound weird? It should. It is how we have all watched women be treated in this country. As if they are less than an animal. As if assaulting a woman is her shame. This is just one way so many women have been shamed into silence.
It is not her shame; it is the predator’s shame. It is, as McGowan said: “The scarlet letter is theirs.”
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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