Minnie Driver took aim at her ex Matt Damon over his recent sexual misconduct comments because “men simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily level”.
In an ABC News interview, the actor saluted women who are coming forward with sexual misconduct allegations against bosses and co-workers, but he angered many viewers when he attempted to make it clear that patting a woman’s behind is not the same as rape “or child molestation”.
Matt said, “I think it’s wonderful that women are feeling empowered to tell their stories and it’s totally necessary… (but) I do believe there’s a spectrum of behavior… There’s a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?
“Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.”
Minnie, who co-starred in Matt’s 1997 movie Good Will Hunting, called out her ex on Twitter on Friday (15Dec17) and now she explains she felt it was important for her to speak up, so men and women can “get on the same page” over the subject of sex abuse.
“I felt I desperately needed to say something,” she tells The Guardian. “I’ve realized that most men, good men, the men that I love, there is a cut-off in their ability to understand. They simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily level.”
“I honestly think that until we get on the same page, you can’t tell a woman about their abuse,” she adds. “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.”
Driver was also surprised by Damon’s remarks regarding comedian Louis C.K., who has admitted to exposing himself to several colleagues, insisting her ex shouldn’t defend him because he felt his offenses were not as serious as rape.
“I don’t understand why Matt would defend Louis CK,” she says. “It seems to me that he thinks that because he didn’t rape somebody – so far as we know – that what he did do wasn’t as bad.”
“That’s a problem,” she continues. “If good men like Matt Damon are thinking like that then we’re in a lot of f**king trouble. We need good intelligent men to say this is all bad across the board, condemn it all and start again.”
Last year (16), the actress revealed she had been sexually assaulted as a teenager on vacation in Greece and she insists the problem is widespread.
“There is not a woman I know, myself included, who has not experienced verbal abuse and sexual epithets their whole f**king life, right up to being manhandled and having my career threatened several times by men I wouldn’t sleep with,” she adds.
