Rose McGowan has ruffled some feathers among LGBTQ allies today after her harsh criticism of the gay male community hit airwaves. Rose aired her frustrations with gay men on Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast last month. The pair discussed this summer’s boycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel, which is owned by the Sultan of Brunei, who just enacted anti-gay policies in his state. While the actress maintains that she’s been “heavily entrenched” in the gay community, she takes issue with gay men’s lack of concern for women, seeing it as very hypocritical.
“You wanna talk about the fact that I have heard nobody in the gay community, no gay males, standing up for women on any level?” she said. “Gay men are as misogynistic as straight men, if not more so. I have an indictment of the gay community right now, I’m actually really upset with them.” Rose says that, in her eyes, gay men don’t take a stand against aspects of Sharia law that affect women.
“I think it’s what happens to you as a group when you are starting to get most of what you fought for. What do you do now? What I would hope they would do is extend a hand to women. Women, by-and-large, have very much helped the gay community get to where they are today.”
Rose has been so perturbed by gay men that she held a party at the Beverly Hills Hotel this summer in spite of the boycott. “And I have seen not a single peep from these people, who supposedly represent lesbians as well… when the equal pay act was shut down by Republicans in the Senate, not a single man mentioned that,” she continued. “I see now people who have basically fought for the right to stand on top of a float wearing an orange speedo and take molly [MDMA].”
Of course, Rose’s comments were greeted with a huge backlash and she published an apology for her words in The Huffington Post. In the piece, the actress admits that she made a “dumb generalization” about gay men, but she’s not taking back her words about how the community needs to be more supportive of women’s rights issues.
“Where does it say that because of a man’s sexual preference, I don’t get to point out character defects?” she wrote. “When equal pay for women was voted down by every male Republican there was no LGBT outcry. I wondered why that was? After all, lesbians are women, this affects them, too, right? Misogyny infuriates men and it endangers me as a human. It also endangers the LGBT community. Empathy towards the plight of women isn’t making it better. Your voice will. Could I have articulated my frustration in a better fashion? Undoubtedly. For that I apologize, but I stand by my overall point. The rights that have been earned by the community are simple civil rights. What I want is for gay rights activists to help other disenfranchised groups. These activists are experts while so many other groups flounder. It’s time to share the wealth and knowledge.”
[via Pink News, The Huffington Post]
