Minnie Driver
© Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
The actor Minnie Driver has told the Guardian that men "simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily level" and should not therefore attempt to differentiate or explain sexual misconduct against women.

Driver was discussing comments by Matt Damon, whom she once dated and with whom she starred in the Oscar-winning 1997 film Good Will Hunting. In an interview with ABC News this week, Damon said alleged sexual misconduct by powerful men involved "a spectrum of behaviour".

Damon said there was "a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation. Both of those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn't be conflated."

He added that society was in a "watershed moment" and said it was "wonderful that women are feeling empowered to tell their stories and it's totally necessary". But he said: "We live in this culture of outrage and injury, that we're going to have to correct enough to kind of go, 'Wait a minute. None of us came here perfect.'"

In her first response to Damon, Driver wrote on Twitter: "God God, seriously?

"Gosh it's so interesting (profoundly unsurprising) how men with all these opinions about women's differentiation between sexual misconduct, assault and rape reveal themselves to be utterly tone deaf and as a result, systemically part of the problem."


Comment: Oh, you go girl with that condescension. See how much it gets you.


Driver's response to Damon was shared widely on social media, alongside that of the actor Alyssa Milano, who said: "There are different stages of cancer. Some more treatable than others. But it's still cancer."


Comment: Yeah, but cancer isn't attached to another human being. You do remember men are human beings, don't you Alyssa? Didn't think so.


On Saturday, Driver told the Guardian: "I felt I desperately needed to say something. I've realised that most men, good men, the men that I love, there is a cut-off in their ability to understand. They simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily level."


Comment: This is true. We also can't understand what it's like for a schizophrenic to have to listen to the martians telling him to set his neighbor's house on fire every night. People who don't have a mental illness don't understand those who do.


"I honestly think that until we get on the same page, you can't tell a woman about their abuse. A man cannot do that. No one can. It is so individual and so personal, it's galling when a powerful man steps up and starts dictating the terms, whether he intends it or not."


Comment: There are two human beings involved. You know, those other human beings, called men?


Driver's comments come more than two months into a radical national reappraisal of gender relations begun by accusations against Harvey Weinstein, an executive producer of Good Will Hunting who denies allegations including sexual assault and rape.

Speaking to ABC, Damon compared allegations against Weinstein, Al Franken, Kevin Spacey and the comedian Louis CK, whom he commended for his remorseful response.

"That's the sign of somebody who - well, we can work with that," Damon said, adding: "I don't know Louis CK. I've never met him. I'm a fan of his, but I don't imagine he's going to do those things again. You know what I mean? I imagine the price that he's paid at this point is so beyond anything ... "


Comment: After Comrade Louis admitted his faith in the party had wavered, that he had pursued personal financial gain, he apologized for bringing his capitalist taint into our Maoist paradise. He should be forgiven!


Driver said that as accusations, suspensions and firings first swept through Hollywood, she initially refrained from comment. She was now moved to expand her initial response to Damon.

"I don't understand why Matt would defend Louis CK," she said. "It seems to me that he thinks that because he didn't rape somebody - so far as we know - that what he did do wasn't as bad."


Comment: So far as you know? Every man is a rapist after all.


The comedian was accused of misconduct including masturbating in front of a number of women. In response, he said "these stories are true" but did not specifically apologise.

"That's a problem," Driver continued. "If good men like Matt Damon are thinking like that then we're in a lot of fucking trouble. We need good intelligent men to say this is all bad across the board, condemn it all and start again."


Comment: Why do you need it? Shouldn't you need a good lawyer? These guys certainly do.


Driver argued that men should not be granted the power to interpret abuse inflicted on women without the risk of redoubling an injustice they can scarcely understand.
matt damon
"I felt that what Matt Damon was saying was an Orwellian idea, we are all equal except that some us are more equal than others," she said. "Put abuse in there ... that all abuse is equal but some is worse."


Comment: Pretty sure she doesn't understand Orwellian, and has never actually read Animal Farm. Squealer alters the laws about people to favor one group over another. That's what you're doing Minnie. You are saying that men and women are equal, but that women are more equal than men, therefore should have special "privilege" when it comes to sexual assault and harassment allegations.

Talk about blaming the victim.


She added: "There is no hierarchy of abuse - that if a woman is raped [it] is much worse than if woman has a penis exposed to her that she didn't want or ask for ... you cannot tell those women that one is supposed to feel worse than the other.


Comment: Right? Isn't that a bit totalitarian and sadistic? But then, I guess that's the point isn't it. It's more fun to punish small crimes with monstrous torture and abuse. That's what a psychopath really enjoys. The mind job of it all.


"And it certainly can't be prescribed by a man. The idea of tone deafness is the idea there [is] no equivalency.


Comment: Because men don't have rights, certainly not in relationships, or in defining human sexual interactions. Only the woman matters.


"How about: it's all fucking wrong and it's all bad, and until you start seeing it under one umbrella it's not your job to compartmentalise or judge what is worse and what is not. Let women do the speaking up right now. The time right now is for men just to listen and not have an opinion about it for once."


Comment: On this we agree. Men should really refrain from interacting with #MeToo. Whatever virtue signal you come up with, it will never be enough. Just go back to your video games and let the feminist movement tear itself apart.


Since the first publication of allegations against Weinstein, a number of women have come forward to detail abuse they have suffered. This week, the actor Salma Hayek wrote a long essay for the New York Times about her treatment by Weinstein.

"There is not a woman I know," Driver said, "myself included, who has not experienced verbal abuse and sexual epithets their whole fucking life, right up to being manhandled and having my career threatened several times by men I wouldn't sleep with."


Comment: And yet you've have a nominally successful career? What did you think working in the world would be like? Sunshine, fairies, and everything handed to you on a platter?

You're not entitled to an easy life, just a life. Suck it up and walk it off.


Driver did not elaborate on the persons or circumstances involved. But she expressed optimism that as the culture of harassment and abuse that has existed is exposed, men will find a way to support women.

"In the same stereotypical way that we see women being supportive of men in their endeavors," she said, "I feel that's what women need of men in this moment. They need men to lean on and not question.


Comment:

Woman: "Honey, you know when I supported you when you decided to write that novel?"
Man: "Sure babe, you were wonderful!"
Woman: "I'm glad you think so, but since I supported you writing your little bookie, do you mind supporting all women in an effort to strip all men of due process?"
Man: "Umm, that's not really..."


"Men can rally and they can support, but I don't think its appropriate, per se, for men to have an opinion about how women should be metabolising abuse. Ever."