Insider has an interview with Harvey Weinstein’s lead defense attorney, Donna Rotunno, who calls herself the “ultimate feminist.”
Feminists and Weinstein accusers say they’ve been repulsed by her comments, accusing her of victim blaming.
Rotunno says women have fought for decades to be viewed as equal to men, and now they need to start taking on some of the responsibility that comes with it.
Some excerpts:
In addition to fighting for Weinstein’s acquittal, Rotunno is waging a broader crusade against both the #MeToo movement and a culture she believes infantilizes women and rewards victimhood. . . .
The problem with women today, Rotunno told Insider . . . is that they don’t take responsibility for their decisions. . . .
“Everybody says, ‘Oh, are you telling women that if they go to hotel rooms they deserve to be raped?’ No,” Rotunno said. “What I’m saying is that after having drinks and being at a party and sitting in a bar with somebody and going to their hotel at midnight, don’t be so ridiculous as to say, ‘I thought I was going to see a script.’ At some point, where is the responsibility?”
“Nobody wants to say, ‘If you want real equality, and you want things like #MeToo to not happen to you, you have to take on the risk of making different choices,'” Rotunno said. . . .
Even if the women were trying to appease Weinstein out of fear of retaliation, or to protect their jobs, Rotunno said that doesn’t explain why they willingly met him when they knew he’d likely make sexual advances, if they didn’t truly want those advances.
“Those are still choices,” Rotunno told Insider. “You’re still in a position where you are choosing a career over your own self-worth. You are saying that ‘this choice may get me a job, which is more important to me than my dignity and my self-worth.’
“Men are not going to stop asking women to go to the hotel room,” Rotunno went on. “Women have to stop going. Because if there’s one woman left willing to do it, it’s going to continue.”