A few months ago, Jacqueline Bisset came out to support her goddaughter Angelina Jolie at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Bisset was close to Angelina’s mother Marcheline, and Bisset has shown her support for Angelina often over the years. I get the impression that Bisset and Jolie are genuinely very close and in frequent contact. But Bisset is still of a certain generation which… is still not prepared to talk about sexism, gender inequality or sexual harassment in any way. We’ve seen this from many actresses – especially European actresses – from the older generations. It’s especially galling in Bisset’s case because… her goddaughter Angelina was one of the first women to go on the record about Harvey Weinstein in 2017.
Actress Jacqueline Bisset admits she’s “unsympathetic” toward women who came forward during the #MeToo movement and feels that women are partially to blame for any sexual harassment.
“I understand as an idea, it’s important that men behave, but I do really think it’s important that women behave, too,” the international actress, 80, exclusively tells Page Six. “I think how you dress, what your subtext is very, very important. It’s very dangerous and not to be played with.”
The “Day for Night” star opines that perhaps women are free of any blame if “you don’t know anything about men,” but adds that she’s “very unsympathetic to these stories, these #MeToo things.” She adds, “You have to be very careful what you put out [there].”
The #MeToo movement began going viral in 2017 following the exposure of movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s myriad alleged abuse and assaults against female employees and actresses. Dozens more men in the fields of politics, media and entertainment were also brought down by the #MeToo movement including former CBS honcho Les Moonves, comedian Louis C.K., and former “Today” show anchor Matt Lauer.
Bisset suggests that as an antidote to possible harassment women “need to learn the word ‘no’ or the F-word or something and you have to do it and you can get through it without any problem.”
The actress, who says she’s never to have experienced any sexual harassment, first came to the US from the UK in 1967.“I was very determined not to have anything happen to me and I was completely devoted to that idea,” she says.
Yeah, all of what she says here is complete garbage and it’s really offensive. Abuse, harassment, assault – it’s not about what a woman is wearing or what she says and there isn’t some magical garment or word to use to save someone from being harassed, attacked or abused. Has Bisset ever asked her goddaughter about what Harvey Weinstein did to her? That conversation might be enlightening to Bisset. As I said, this seems to be a consistent generational issue too – I think the older women who lived through/survived some really awful sh-t just don’t want to acknowledge how bad it was, and they’ve absorbed so much patriarchy, they can’t imagine that younger women refuse to put up with the same sh-t.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- PALM SPRINGS, CA – JANUARY 03: Jacqueline Bisset at the 36th Annual Palm Springs International Film Awards at Palm Springs Convention Center on January 03, 2025 in Palm Springs, California. Copyright: xJeffreyxMayerx,Image: 951677863, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon/Avalon
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- PALM SPRINGS, RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 03: Zahara Marley Jolie, Angelina Jolie and Jacqueline Bisset arrive at the 36th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Film Awards 2025 held at the Palm Springs Convention Center on January 3, 2025 in Palm Springs, Riverside County, California, United States.,Image: 951734123, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Zahara Marley Jolie, Angelina Jolie, Jacqueline Bisset, Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
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- PALM SPRINGS, RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 03: Zahara Marley Jolie, Angelina Jolie and Jacqueline Bisset arrive at the 36th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Film Awards 2025 held at the Palm Springs Convention Center on January 3, 2025 in Palm Springs, Riverside County, California, United States.,Image: 951734123, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Zahara Marley Jolie, Angelina Jolie, Jacqueline Bisset, Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
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- PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 03: Jacqueline Bisset attends the 36th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Film Awards at Palm Springs Convention Center on January 03, 2025 in Palm Springs, California.,Image: 952001659, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Jacqueline Bisset, Credit line: Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon/Avalon
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- Palm Springs International Film Festival Gala at Palm Springs Convention Center on January 3, 2025 in Palm Springs, CA,Image: 952053385, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Jacqueline Bisset, Credit line: Nicky Nelson/Wenn/Avalon
Well isn’t she lucky that nobody sexually harassed her and I’m very sure other women were determined not to have something happen to them but it did anyway. She should keep her stupid and antiquated thoughts on this to herself.
I don’t believe for second that she’s gone 80 years without experiencing some form of harassment or abuse. She just accepts it as normal.
Not just normal, but *desirable*.
Agreed. Her statement, ‘you’ll just get through it’ is very telling. She put up with sh*t & ‘got through it’. And puh-leeze, are we still back with the ‘look at how she was dressed, she was asking for it’? Gad, I thought we all knew better by now. And just saying ‘f*ck off’ ain’t gonna work.
I live in Toronto, Ontario in Canada – there was a serial rapist in his 30s, here, who solely targeted women in their 60s and 70s. So what dress code and subtext does Batty Bisset think these seniors were exhibiting? If a man is a rapist, then that’s who he is and trying to both-side the attacks is, at the very least, cruel and offensive to the victims of sexual assault.
It’s no excuse for the men, but do women in film get to choose “how they dress” or does a wardrobe department do that? And what part of women being drugged so they couldn’t object or saying “no” and being ignored is she not getting? The women knew the word “no”; the men didn’t.
“The women knew the word ‘no’; the men didn’t.”
I love that. GOD. STOP BLAMING WOMEN FOR THE LOVE OF £*$&£$*!!!!! It’s men who refuse to listen to the word no. Who don’t even ACCEPT ‘no’ as a concept that applies to them.
But ultimately I just don’t want to give this kind of irrelevant trash any more air time than it deserves. Someone shared a moronic take – ok, on we go with the good fight.
And it’s not solely about men who don’t understand the word “no” or who won’t listen to the word. Even IF men accept the word “no,” the woman will pay the price financially, losing jobs and maybe having no career at all. All because they dared to say “no.” Bisset doesn’t get that powerful make saying “no” NOT an option at all.
It is a weird European thing. I mean, they still love Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. It’s like they expect women to just accept the fact that men are trash.
I think it is a generational thing as well. I find some older women who never experienced abuse feel this need to take ownership of it. I.e. they can’t admit to themselves that they were lucky.
But yeah the Polanski / Allen thing is appalling. Especially because WA films are not exactly worth defending. He basically made one movie twenty times. Maybe at was new at the time, but come on! You are willing to compromise your principles over that??
I can’t speak on Polansky because I refuse to watch any of his trash. But I’ll bet he’s not the second coming either.
People still claim Allen’s Manhattan is one of the greatest films ever. Sure, it’s high quality cinematically but the story is the cringiest ever. A man in his forties is dating a 17 year old whose father is younger than him. And HE wants to break it off but she is too much in love with him. Just gross. That should have been the first clue about Allen and his proclivities.
I think she has been harrassed/abused but she just doesnt WANT to define it as that. The older generation just define as “part of the job”. This is why Pelicot is so huge. She is older and knows its wrong.
Agreed—a lot of this is major denial. And it gives off “you weren’t ‘tough ‘like my generation” vibes—as if abuse is hazing actors have to accept.
GHJIK I agree with you. I think it is unlikely that any woman working in show business would not be harassed. This environment is especially dangerous for women, sexual minorities and children.
I know many woman from the silent generation , boomers, x who will talk about how bad it was so I dont want to paint the generations with one brought brush bc of her comments. Like the book Lessons in Chemistry if you read it notes the harrassment of the lead boomer of silent generation character. My mother-in-law is 82 and she was like read this there is so much sexism in here and it touches on things that resonate strongly experiences of w my senior female friends.
Also if you grew up in a house w abuse, trauma or without boundaries, psych issues or you are from a vulnerable population…. (so much to unpack) its much harder to “just say No” or to handle things properly bc you never had proper childhood experiences to give you power or the tools….. ugh!
That was a great book! Everyone should read it!
She’s a Brit. Is there any evidence that we are generally more tolerant of abusers? The US seems pretty tolerant of them given it elected one as POTUS. I agree her comments are pretty awful.
Women who benefit from feminism yet continue to support the patriarchy are the worst and deliberately hold us all back. Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck the women who refuse to fathom the toxicity and support the toxicity. Women such as Jacqueline raised the incel bros that scream mantras like “Your body, my choice” and have moved our society back generations. There is no excuse for condoning rape and abuse.
Yeah, this woman is quite something. Still, she’s astute enough to realize that “as a general idea, it’s important that men behave.” What? Sexual harassment, assault, and rape are actually crimes, so it’s not just a matter of “behaving” as if Harvey Weinstein was a naughty boy. Then, J. Bisset immediately both-sides the issue by saying that women also must “behave” when it comes to not being harassed at work. Wow. It’s like blaming a robbery victim for showing their money at a cash register. Still a crime, Jacqueline! To me, her sympathies are clear just from her statements.
As an abuse survivor myself, F-ck this woman. Way to victim blame, Jackie.
Just terrible.
I should have said no more forcefully when I was dragged by the hair into a lane way to be raped and beaten. I’m sure that would have done it 🙄🙄
Yes, and I should have been more forceful when I was being interviewed for a modeling job many years ago and the man interviewing me pushed me onto a sofa and stuck his hand forcefully up my lady bits. Gee…my bad…
So self-congratulatory. “It didn’t happen to me so it must be something YOU did.”
She reminds me of Catherine Deneuve – that particular generation of women in film who were lauded because they tolerated the abuse.
Just wondering if Charlotte Rampling holds the same sentiment?
Also, Gerard Depardieu is in deep 💩
How the mighty have fallen!
Can we stop with the generational stereotypes? There are plenty of women of all ages who have spoken out against predators. There are plenty of women of all ages who have repeatedly voted for predators. Some of the most active social justice fighters I know are in their 70s and 80s – this is the generation that led the civil rights and women’s rights movements. It’s ageist – let’s just call out the jerks without blaming “the olds, am i right?”
Yes!
Amen. I often wonder how the ageists here are going to feel about themselves when they hit 50?
And why don’t they bring up age when someone young says something they find offensive?
I wonder why we can’t hold individuals accountable for what they say without trashing an entire generation and in this case, an entire continent?
It’s Europe! It’s Boomers! No, it’s a person who said something you don’t like. And chances are fairly good that plenty of European women her age both agree and disagree with her.
Well said @ElsaBug, @Charlotte Corday. Unfortunately stereotyping others is an easy trap to fall into. Haven’t read this Jacqueline Bisset article too closely, but the impression I’ve come away with is — Jacqueline B is saying she’s incapable or unwilling to show compassion.
100%. Well-said.
Likewise, the geographical stereotypes. Thousands of women in France protested violence against women last winter in the wake of what Gisele Pelicot went through. Plenty of European women have their own #MeToo experiences and have been advocates and activists for the movement.
But yeah Jane Fonda is 87 years old and has been a fierce defender of the #MeToo movement. Bisset is just an asshole.
It is definitely a generational thing. I think older women, boomers, were expected to put up with the abuse and so they accept it as the cost of doing business. Whereas younger women, Gen X and younger grew up during and after the civil rights movement began. So we have an attitude that if something is unconscionable, you have a right to protest it, nee a duty. The older women grew up in a society that was already extraordinarily unfair, where there was segregation, and women had very few rights a a baseline, so in order to survive you had to figure out ways to cope with the iniquity on a daily basis and you didn’t have time to get upset about things because it was just the way society was.
It was even worse for women of my grandmother’s generation (the Greatest Generation). She worked as a hotel maid at high end hotel in New York in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. She told me stories about how the guests would always harass her and expect her to ‘service’ them. How she had to physically fight them off – she carried a small pocket knife in her apron. And if she or her co-workers complained THEY would be punished or fired. They had a list of brothels they could direct a guest to if he really wanted to get some ‘action’. And if the maid was smart, she could re-direct the guest’s attention from her and send him to someone who could, professionally, give him what he wanted. If the guest was happy with the brothel, he would sometimes leave a good tip for the maid the next day. But it was a constant battle to preserve your own safety and not lose your job at the same time.
So it’s a dichotomy of sorts with the older women who are against Me Too. They put up with a lot, but they’re also the same ones that taught us we have a right to fight for ourselves through the civil rights movement.
It’s one thing to accept harassment and abuse because the system has no space for recourse, it’s another to claim, as Bisset does, that the abuse never existed.
True. But it makes me wonder, do these women just not classify the behavior as abuse because they were trained to accept it as normal? I had a similar conversation at coffee hour after church recently with some boomer women that are my mom’s contemporaries, and Bisset’s attitude is very prevalent amongst them. It’s like they don’t realize that the behavior constitutes abuse and they have a right to fight it. There’s a real cognitive dissonance there.
@Angelica+Schuyler – I can’t speak for them, but I am nearer their age than yours. It’s not about training. Standards of “normal” change. When abuse is everywhere, that’s normal. When this is the norm, you can hate it, you can resent it, you can fight it, but there’s no denying that you have to deal with it in some way or you’re not going to be able to get through life. You just can’t be angry every single minute of your life.
And once you get through it and can settle down and relax, you’ve got some younger person (who has very right to feel how she does) giving you a lesson on misogyny and how you don’t understand that the life you lived through actually sucked and you should have fought harder. Before I had men telling me I was weak and clueless, now I have women telling me that? What kind of answer is expected here? I don’t know, it’s kind of exhausting.
@@Angelica+Schuyler — Here we go again blaming “boomer” women. I’m a boomer woman and I, along with almost every woman I know in this age group, have ALL been sexually abused or harassed and spoke up about it but got ignored or fired from our jobs or blamed for leading men on. That collective anger helped us get sexual harassment regulations written into codes of conduct in the workplace decades ago that have given women today the power to fight back. Your welcome.
Sorry, your history is a little off. I’m a boomer & that 2nd gen women’s movement was taking place when I was in grade school & thereafter (1st gen being the women who got us the right to vote). Scroll back up to read comment #10 & the responses.
Well put. There have always been women who fought for equal treatment and there have always been those who go along.
It’s fine if she wants to tell herself she’s never been sexually harassed, but I highly doubt that. I personally don’t know a single woman that has never been sexually harassed in some way. Most of those forms of sexual harassment were relatively minor, and merely annoying, but it’s still harassment. I find it hard to believe a man has never whistled at her, or honked at her, or made a borderline or absolutely inappropriate comment about her appearance at some point, or grabbed her butt in passing. By the age of 11, I could no longer say I had never been sexually harassed in some way. Maybe she only went to a very progressive school with boys that had taken classes on how to not sexually harass their classmates. Maybe she’s never been to a bar with handsy patrons. Again, most of my personal experiences were merely inappropriate and annoying, but it’s harassment nonetheless.
Yeah, the harassment starts early; for me, it was third grade & it never let up. Never.
The fact that she lacks the humanity to empathize with suffering says EVERYTHING I need to know about the actress who read the script for 1983’s “Class” and said…”I’LL DO IT!” 😲🤨😠
There’s no way in the world she wasn’t subjected to any kind of harassment. But she is like Maiwenn – European actresses carrying water for abusers out of denial.
“I think the older women who lived through/survived some really awful sh-t just don’t want to acknowledge how bad it was, and they’ve absorbed so much patriarchy, they can’t imagine that younger women refuse to put up with the same sh-t.”
OMG THIS! THANK YOU! There is so much even I feel like I tolerated as a younger person that now it seems women would immediately call out, stop, not accept, etc. Im not even 40 yet.
Let’s not just blame her age…plenty of younger women have made stupid remarks about thinking intimacy coordinators are bullsh** etc…I’m not quite her age but getting up there and completely disagree with her statements and find them harmful.
Very disappointing. To me, the Me Too movement acknowledges that it takes multiple women to get a man convicted or at least acknowledged that he’s a rapist because one woman against one man is not “believable” enough. Men’s status and privilege are higher than a woman’s. This is misogyny and sexism. I don’t know the exact ratio, but it seems there have to be a minimum of 4 women accusers to overcome the disbelief that one woman is telling the truth. The advantage is in the man’s court. Always. So in other words, 4 women equal 1 man. 4 women are believable whereas one woman is not.
I think it’s important to remember that most women (especially in the West) have some agency. They do not have to dress provocatively solely to get attention, or accept invitations to go into men’s hotel rooms alone. Women used to be tougher and savvier than this. They worked as nurses, among men, in tents on the war front as far back as Florence Nightingale, they fought the patriarchy as suffragettes, they became missionaries, they practically ran munitions factories and Welsh women fought off foreign invaders with pitchforks. The victim woman, Me Too tropes may raise awareness of frat boy and predator bad behavior but they turn women back into the weaker vessel. Most importantly, women need to look after each other. They used to do a better job of it. Now women are raised to compete with each other too much, which is hardly a recipe for good behavior from either sex.
Different people have different takes on what’s considered provocative attire. Some women choose to reject our victim-blaming culture and dress however they please, as is their right. Women do need to look out for each other, and that includes looking out for immodest women-not using their choice to reject values that are coerced and violently forced upon women as an excuse for abusive behavior from men (or other women). Acknowledging sexual violence and harassment is not weakness.
This comment is misogynistic and completely ignores the levels of abuse women go through and why it happens.
Keep in mind the biggest risk to a woman is her partner, not random men in hotel rooms.
*Speaking out* is an act of strength, not victimhood. The women doing this activism and work are no less important than suffragettes and other active women who were dismissed at the time exactly the way *you* are doing now.
Women competing with each other has nothing to do with men behaving badly.
“Women need to look after each other”. That’s not what your message is doing or promoting in the slightest. At all.
The Yes, it’s so mysoginistic. I’m shocked more people weren’t horrified by that comment. Women could not complain, there was no one to complain to, ffs. Grow up and learn facts.
As a boomer, we all had every day sexism/mysoginy and sexual harassment. Rape in marriage was only codified relatively recently. Women earned less than men (and still do) and women with children were dependent on men. The first time I was sexually groped as in touching skin I was 12. How much agency did a 12 yr old have? Dragged into a lane way and raped and beaten. How much agency? Btw that was in the late 80s so not that long ago relatively speaking.
Women complaining make them less tough? Gmafb. I doubt this is a woman commenting and if it is, I feel sorry for any woman she knows. Calling out men, going to court, that’s tough. We’ve, many of us lost jobs because we complained. It still happens today. So a 12 yr old having pubescent breasts and genitals fondled is just par for the course. I’ve been sexually assaulted numerous times, mostly on public transport btw. Once going to church.
Gtfooh with this crap, “penny”.
Just because a woman likes to dress a certain way or go to a hotel room for a job interview does NOT give a man a get-out-of-jail-free-card to attack them. Nor does competitiveness between women have anything to do with getting sexually harassed. Women more than ever are working in fields that have been previously limited to men — it didn’t just happen during the wars or suffrage — they are film directors, CEOs, doctors, lawyers, politicians, you name it — not just doing “Rosie the Riveter” jobs. So your argument that the ME TOO movement turns women into weaker people holds no water.
Sheeeez-us. Come ON. Take another look at your comment and your belief system.
Actresses that did as you suggest — refused to go to hotel rooms alone — did NOT get roles they wanted and trained for. Is that fair? And hundreds of others, believe it or not, did NOT know that a professional meeting was going to turn into an assault. As for dressing provocatively (you can’t be serious!), I dress for myself — for fun, as creative expression — not to get attention. If some guy thinks it’s provocative, that’s on him.
If women are supposed to look out for each other, then why are you using the “victim” label? When was this golden age when women looked out for each other more anyway? The #MeToo movement is the very definition of women looking out for women.
Her generation had to ‘get through’ this stuff because it was so prevalent. There were so many times my 75 year old mother, who worked for 55 years, had to ‘put up’ with being talked down to, chased around a desk, sexually harassed, her credit and bonuses for her work stolen from her by a male superiors, plotted against by jealous male co-workers who could not put up the same performance numbers as she did – because there was no recourse. No HR policy or person who was going to do anything about it. No DEI policy to encourage equal opportunity for women. It was a different time. I dark time, that I am terrified we are going back to. It makes me so angry when I see 20 something women posting videos espousing being a trad wife so they can just stay home with their man making the money so they don’t have to juggle work and childcare. They don’t have any knowledge of the struggle for equality. They should be posting videos asking why their government doesn’t support working mothers by providing subsidized quality childcare or more mandated parental leave that is paid.
This, from a woman whose opening scene in The Deep is her swimming in a white t-shirt with nothing underneath…. Her career was based on her sex appeal… The entire justification because it never “happened” to you is some sort of mental gymnastics …
I work with enough women who have stated out loud….
1) women would not make a good president
2) women should not be in decision -making work positions
3) will not see a woman doctor
And you know how they voted…..
People like her are part of the problem because they’re part of the culture that teaches men and boys that if a woman or girl is dressed a certain way, society will excuse their abuse of her. It’s important to watch the way we talk about girls and women so we’re not teaching males that they’re somehow less capable of not abusing certain women, or that we’ll look the other way if they target women who do things some of us don’t like.
I once worked with an older Cuban woman. When talking about male sexual abuse of women, she said, “A woman could be walking down the street naked, and still no man has the right to touch her.” I never forgot that and no, not all older women are complacent about male sexual violence.