Matt Damon has been receiving the wrath of a lot of prominent women over the past few days, owing to an interview he did regarding the current sexual-misconduct reckoning in Hollywood. In his interview, Damon elaborated on how there should be a “spectrum of behavior†when it comes to these types of crimes, as they’re not all inherently equal in nature. “And we’re going to have to figure — you know, there’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?†he said. “Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?†Minnie Driver, confused by Damon’s opinions, originally took to Twitter to share her disgust, but now she’s elaborated her thoughts in a longer interview with The Guardian. Her stance: What the hell, man?
“I’ve realised that most men, good men, the men that I love, there is a cut-off. They simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily level,†Driver explained. “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.â€
The big “problem,†Driver reckoned, is men don’t believe any other situation besides rape could really be “as bad†as women make it out to be. “If good men like Matt Damon are thinking like that then we’re in a lot of fucking trouble,†she said. “We need good intelligent men to say this is all bad across the board, condemn it all and start again. … 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.†Perhaps as Driver puts it best:
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.
Other women, such as Alyssa Milano, have called Damon out on his comments, reminding him that there’s no hierarchy of abuse for women.