In this op-ed, Kelly Gonsalves explains why Lindsay Lohan’s take on #MeToo is completely wrong.
The #MeToo movement has emboldened many to come forward with their own experiences of sexual assault and harassment, and served as what many hope will be a cultural tipping point — but not everyone thinks that.
In an interview with The Times, Lindsay Lohan addressed the #MeToo movement. While everyone from celebrities and politicians to hotel employees and farm workers felt empowered to finally speak their truth, Lindsay, apparently, wasn’t too impressed.
“I’m going to really hate myself for saying this, but I think by women speaking against all these things, it makes them look weak when they are very strong women,” she told The Times. “You have these girls who come out, who don’t even know who they are, who do it for the attention. That is taking away from the fact that it happened.”
She noted she’s never had any experiences with harassment while working in movies — “I can’t speak on something I didn’t live, right?” — before going on to call those who came forward with their #MeToo stories “attention-seekers.”
If it happens at that moment, you discuss it at that moment,” she went on. “You make it a real thing by making it a police report.”
Here’s what she's missing about how coming forward about sexual assault works: Telling someone or filing a police report of an assault doesn’t make it “real.” If it happened to you, it happened to you, police report or not. Everyone deals with their experiences differently — a point that Lindsay herself even conceded to in the same interview. Some victims immediately go to the police; others only want to confide in their closest friends. Others don’t want to tell anyone at all. In the words of one survivor who penned an essay for Marie Claire recently about her own unexpected response to her assault, “it’s time we stopped being surprised that the primitive, unnatural act of rape can trigger equally primitive, unnatural responses in its victims.”
📸: Getty Images
