CANDACE OWENS: You can say that there are obviously tons of women that are raped and that go through these really awful experiences, who saw themselves and said, “You know what? that’s a movement that’s for me, that encourages me to come out and talk about that.” Great. That’s a great launch point. People that are raped should always speak out, regardless of whether or not there’s a hashtag or not (sic). But ultimately, that movement is sowing division between men and women and I do not support it whatsoever. So, people think I should apologize for not supporting movements that ultimately promote division. I never once in my tweet said that rape victims are weak, you know? That’s a reading comprehension thing. I said that the #MeToo movement was weak and that it was causing more harm than good and I stand by those sentiments. I think that all of these movements which may have been started off of something that was very authentic are now weak. I think the greatest example is that the #MeToo movement has ultimately become a witch hunt on men.

It’s making relations between men and women harder. I hear this, if anybody even looked in the comments. There were women that were saying that they were raped and that they were against #MeToo but nobody wants to hear them because they’ve decided that all women must think this. I’m not a woman that will ever subscribe to groupthink. I just -- I don’t think it’s good, I think herd mentality is wrong and it makes it hard to distinguish between something that is really meaningful and somebody that really experienced pain, like say, a rape victim, and a woman who was just a little uncomfortable, right? A woman who had a guy make a comment to her which is something that does not, in my estimation, need to be something that is reported to the police. It’s creating an environment where every man that I speak to now -- and I go on a lot of business trips, as you guys know. I go and I meet with a lot of CEOs and I see men a lot just in the business of politics say that they wouldn’t even hire a woman, that if they had a choice between hiring a young woman and a young man, they say they would hire a young man just so they don’t have to worry about anything. That’s not good. That means the end-goal of the #MeToo movement is not good, that if you think that the message is that women shouldn’t be raped, that’s not the way it’s being translated out in the real world. You can see culturally it’s already starting to be discussed colloquially -- Kanye’s recent song when he says, “Imagine if I got #MeToo’ed.” He’s not saying, “Oh imagine if I raped a girl,” he would never rape a girl. The #MeToo movement is about men that have correspondences with girls that could come out later and potentially ruin their entire careers. And this is what is felt. This is what men feel.

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I think it is terrifying, terrifying to think that we’re creating a world that young men can’t thrive in and learn and mistakes. You know, when I was growing up, the first time that I got my -- guys used to slap girls’ asses in middle school. That was like the thing. Girls used to kick guys in the crotch in elementary school. That was a thing. Guys used to pull down their pants and moon on the bus, they would moon ongoing cars. All of that is under the umbrella of #MeToo today. All of it. There’s no distinguishing between real rape victims, women that are uncomfortable on dates, men that are giving off-compliments -- off-handed compliments, and that’s the problem. It’s too convoluted. The discussion is not happening anymore, it’s just becoming men that are too scared to even say they don’t support #MeToo, like my inbox represents, they said, and this is a perfect way to sum it up, he said, “I wanted to tweet and defend you but even if I came out and said I didn’t support #MeToo, that would be me being #MeToo’ed.” Even if a man is critical of #MeToo, the mob will ruin their lives. For thinking. For having different ideas. For saying that, “You know what, I understand what you’re trying to say but here is what the world is hearing,” right? And that’s what the women that are like, pitchfork mob mentality -- and look at the way they treated me. I said that I think that the #MeToo movement is weakening to women. It suggests that we can’t handle ourselves in any scenario, like you know, when those guys slapped my ass in middle school I turned around and said “don’t slap my ass,” right? Now, a #MeToo movement activist might say, “They never should’ve slapped your ass.” OK, that’s one way of looking at it, or a lot of these corresponds that happen are these guys and girls growing up, girls kicking guys in the crotch. OK, maybe the girls shouldn’t have done that when I was in elementary school but they did it and I don’t think that these people should be branded and have their lives ruined when they’re 10 and 13 years old because somebody has now decided that these things shouldn’t be happening. I disagree with it. I genuinely disagree with it.

Previously:

Even conservative women are shredding Candace Owens' attack on the #MeToo movement

Candace Owens goes on Fox & Friends to dismiss the impact of police brutality on the black community

On TMZ Live, Kanye West and Candace Owens discuss free thought and call slavery “a choice”