What does it mean to support women? Like really, really support women? Well, supporting other women both in professional and personal settings is key. I would hope we all might all aspire to be the ideal human bras – supporting women tirelessly. But, admittedly, sometimes we fall short. Still, at bare minimum, we should all stop supporting men accused of sexual assaulting other women (and men). When women work with men who have credible allegations of sexual misconduct against them, it gives these bad men cover. It says, see, not all women believe this other woman or women saying bad things about me. If they did, they surely wouldn’t bend their morals so much to work with me, right? Right.
In the age of Me Too, normal clarity is actually pretty simple. Either you agree to keep working with the Harvey Weinsteins and Roman Polanskis and Woody Allens and Kevin Spaceys and Louis C.K.s and newly minted Oscar winner and admitted penis flasher Peter Farrellys of the world, or you don’t.
So then I’m thrilled beyond belief to tell you that Emma Thompson remains a true dame, all-around delight and moral powerhouse. She pulled out of Skydance Animation’s high-profile project “Luck,” after the company hired accused serial sexual harasser John Lasseter, who was forced out of Pixar for exactly those allegations. The letter Emma wrote resigning from the film is a template for how women and men should react when faced with the choice of working with a sex monster.
In a letter she wrote before resigning from the film, she wrote:
“It feels very odd to me that you and your company would consider hiring someone with Mr. Lasseter’s pattern of misconduct given the present climate in which people with the kind of power that you have can reasonably be expected to step up to the plate.”
But it gets better! She continued:
“If a man has been touching women inappropriately for decades, why would a woman want to work for him if the only reason he’s not touching them inappropriately now is that it says in his contract that he must behave “professionally”?”
And she finished ferociously, as one might expect, saying:
“I am well aware that centuries of entitlement to women’s bodies whether they like it or not is not going to change overnight. Or in a year. But I am also aware that if people who have spoken out — like me — do not take this sort of a stand then things are very unlikely to change at anything like the pace required to protect my daughter’s generation.”
Fuck. Yeah. Emma. Thompson. Forever.
Look, we all knew she
was awesome already. But sometimes it’s great to remember how awesome she truly, truly is.
Granted, not all women are in the same financial situation or have the same privilege that Emma does to make these decisions. But we should all aspire to give the righteous middle finger to all these truly Bad Men and those who enable them.
Also, it’s another excuse to remind people that no one gets between
Emma Thompson and Haley Atwell and all other women, really. Long live
this Dame who supports dames.
p.s. Did I mentioned how much Emma and Hayley support each other? So much support. So much.
