Condi Rice warns #MeToo movement risks 'infantilizing' women
Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned against turning women into “snowflakes” as she weighed in on the ongoing #MeToo movement. She called it a positive thing that risks doing more harm than good.
In an interview with CNN’s David Axelrod on ‘The Axe Files,’ Rice said that the ongoing movement to reveal sexual improprieties committed by certain men is a “good thing,” but she warns it could go too far.
“I do think we have to be a little bit careful. Let’s not turn women into snowflakes. Let’s not infantilize women,” Rice said, using the derogatory term 'snowflake' used to describe the new generation of youth who – as their critics contend – are overly politically correct and prone to take offense when challenged by ideas that do not conform to their worldview.
America’s first black secretary of state, Rice candidly admits that in the course of her career she had some people say “some inappropriate things,” while qualifying that statement by saying: “I don't know a woman alive who hasn’t had somebody say or do something that was inappropriate at best, and aggressive at worst.”
Rice said she was worried that the movement might “get to a place that men start to think, ‘Well, maybe it’s just better not to have women around.’
“I’ve heard a little bit of that. And it, it worries me,” she said.
Indeed, although there has been a lot of vocal support for the #MeToo campaign, the social media phenomenon has also had its fair share of detractors.
Just last week, a hundred prominent French women, including actress Catherine Deneuve, denounced the #MeToo movement in a letter published in Le Monde. They said the campaign patronizes women and attempts to punish men without a fair trial.
“Men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss,” reads the letter.
Following mixed reactions to the comments, Deneuve penned a letter that was published Monday by Liberation daily where she apologized to victims of sexual abuse.
However, she held firm in her belief that males are becoming victims of a “media lynching” and that the toxic atmosphere now pervasive between the sexes threatens a setback to sexual freedoms.
Rice also responded to questions about Oprah Winfrey, the billionaire television star who appears to have stolen the show at the Golden Globe. Indeed, some say her acceptance speech – which at one point rehashed the 1944 story of Recy Taylor, who was “abducted by six armed white men, raped, and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church” – her first foray into the thick of politics, possibly as a challenger to Trump himself in 2020.
Axelrod asked Rice if she had any advice for Winfrey over rumors she may make a presidential bid.
“I would just say, if you’re contemplating running for office, just recognize that we put people through a brutal process,” Rice responded. “And they don’t come out quite the same.”
