Long before the likelihood that Joe Biden would enter the 2020 Democratic primaries became so high that his name began to be included on rosters of front-runners, people on the left worried his history of being overly affectionate with female acquaintances would pose a problem.
The question wasn’t whether that would happen – in a world primed by the #MeToo movement to take women’s experiences of male power seriously, it was just a question of what sort of problem would arise, and who would pay for it.
So far, a handful of women have described interactions with Biden that left them uncomfortable. In a recent essay for ‘New York’ magazine, Lucy Flores detailed how a meeting with Biden during her campaign for lieutenant governor in Nevada concluded with the then-vice president allegedly placing his hands on her shoulders, smelling her hair and kissing her head.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
Amy Lappos has recounted an experience in which Biden allegedly grabbed her by the head, put his hands on her neck, and rubbed noses with her at a 2009 fundraiser in Connecticut; Lappos says she thought Biden was going to kiss her on the mouth.
A multitude of photos of Biden’s interactions with women attests to a long-standing tendency to be – depending on your perspective – affectionate and paternal, or invasive and entitled.
In response to these allegations, a spokesman has said Biden doesn’t believe he acted inappropriately but will listen to women’s concerns going forward and champion their rights. In a two-minute video released on Wednesday, Biden himself contextualised his behaviour as “gestures of support”, and said he realises “the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset”. He’ll change his behaviour, he vowed, going forward.
As Molly Roberts of ‘The Washington Post’ points out, that Biden never really had to consider how his behaviour was received before now is a hallmark of power, and one of many complaints the #MeToo movement has advanced. How Biden responds is a problem for him – and his potential campaign, which Biden says is still “full steam ahead” – to deal with. How the left chooses to deal with them is a problem for us, and a serious one.
In my view, the question at this point isn’t whether the allegations against Biden are decisively disqualifying. But grappling with them will require answering a series of difficult questions made even more tense by the rise of #MeToo and will mean doing so in the midst of a contentious, crowded primary leading up to a high-stakes general election. Thus, a more immediate question is: Is Joe Biden worth figuring all that out – right now?
The first challenge for liberal-minded people involves making distinctions.
It’s clear we can distinguish between the allegations against Donald Trump (who was caught on tape talking about grabbing women by their genitals) and those against Biden. But it’s harder to make a distinction between Biden and, say, former Senator Al Franken, who resigned over similar alleged infractions.
People who feel Franken’s actions were inappropriate but Biden’s acceptable have to either engage in tortured reasoning or discount the experiences of Biden’s accusers – that is, to argue the women speaking out about Biden aren’t accurately reporting either what happened or how they felt about it. Doing the former sets a mercurial, shifting standard for responding to allegations of sexual impropriety; doing the latter strays into another trap.
Since the rise of the #MeToo movement – and even well before – the question of how to take women’s accounts has roiled the left, with opinion generally gravitating toward a habit of affirming their own subjective experiences.
Biden’s supporters will have a very hard time adhering to that norm. Claiming the women who have said Biden made them feel uncomfortable are either lying to boost other candidates (as members of Biden’s team reportedly believe), or their stories ought to be discounted based on how long it took them to come out would seem to set a chilling standard for a political movement aiming to put women’s experiences at the centre of its advocacy.
Then there’s the matter of weighing competing goods: a person might hold that he or she does not approve of Biden’s behaviour but believe he has the strongest chance against Trump.
Even setting aside the fact these allegations could continue and polls show other candidates to be just as strong against the president, this kind of reasoning discards the fact primaries present an opportunity to build momentum around candidates.
Why deploy time, energy, money and public relations efforts to try to explain why Biden’s behaviour toward women is all right or his accusers are not credible when there are more than a dozen other candidates who don’t force this dilemma?
One could still maintain that, based on policies (and what has Biden proposed?) or experience, Biden is still the best of the bunch. But one would have to maintain those factors make biting all the above bullets worthwhile.
With so many other viable candidates in the race, the most important question to answer is whether Biden’s potential candidacy is worth all those hazards. And it seems to me it’s not. (© The Washington Post)
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Elizabeth Bruenig: 'Biden's behaviour with women means he isn't worth backing in race against Trump'
Elizabeth Bruenig: 'Biden's behaviour with women means he isn't worth backing in race against Trump'
Long before the likelihood that Joe Biden would enter the 2020 Democratic primaries became so high that his name began to be included on rosters of front-runners, people on the left worried his history of being overly affectionate with female acquaintances would pose a problem.
The question wasn’t whether that would happen – in a world primed by the #MeToo movement to take women’s experiences of male power seriously, it was just a question of what sort of problem would arise, and who would pay for it.
So far, a handful of women have described interactions with Biden that left them uncomfortable. In a recent essay for ‘New York’ magazine, Lucy Flores detailed how a meeting with Biden during her campaign for lieutenant governor in Nevada concluded with the then-vice president allegedly placing his hands on her shoulders, smelling her hair and kissing her head.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
Amy Lappos has recounted an experience in which Biden allegedly grabbed her by the head, put his hands on her neck, and rubbed noses with her at a 2009 fundraiser in Connecticut; Lappos says she thought Biden was going to kiss her on the mouth.
A multitude of photos of Biden’s interactions with women attests to a long-standing tendency to be – depending on your perspective – affectionate and paternal, or invasive and entitled.
In response to these allegations, a spokesman has said Biden doesn’t believe he acted inappropriately but will listen to women’s concerns going forward and champion their rights. In a two-minute video released on Wednesday, Biden himself contextualised his behaviour as “gestures of support”, and said he realises “the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset”. He’ll change his behaviour, he vowed, going forward.
As Molly Roberts of ‘The Washington Post’ points out, that Biden never really had to consider how his behaviour was received before now is a hallmark of power, and one of many complaints the #MeToo movement has advanced. How Biden responds is a problem for him – and his potential campaign, which Biden says is still “full steam ahead” – to deal with. How the left chooses to deal with them is a problem for us, and a serious one.
In my view, the question at this point isn’t whether the allegations against Biden are decisively disqualifying. But grappling with them will require answering a series of difficult questions made even more tense by the rise of #MeToo and will mean doing so in the midst of a contentious, crowded primary leading up to a high-stakes general election. Thus, a more immediate question is: Is Joe Biden worth figuring all that out – right now?
The first challenge for liberal-minded people involves making distinctions.
It’s clear we can distinguish between the allegations against Donald Trump (who was caught on tape talking about grabbing women by their genitals) and those against Biden. But it’s harder to make a distinction between Biden and, say, former Senator Al Franken, who resigned over similar alleged infractions.
People who feel Franken’s actions were inappropriate but Biden’s acceptable have to either engage in tortured reasoning or discount the experiences of Biden’s accusers – that is, to argue the women speaking out about Biden aren’t accurately reporting either what happened or how they felt about it. Doing the former sets a mercurial, shifting standard for responding to allegations of sexual impropriety; doing the latter strays into another trap.
Since the rise of the #MeToo movement – and even well before – the question of how to take women’s accounts has roiled the left, with opinion generally gravitating toward a habit of affirming their own subjective experiences.
Biden’s supporters will have a very hard time adhering to that norm. Claiming the women who have said Biden made them feel uncomfortable are either lying to boost other candidates (as members of Biden’s team reportedly believe), or their stories ought to be discounted based on how long it took them to come out would seem to set a chilling standard for a political movement aiming to put women’s experiences at the centre of its advocacy.
Then there’s the matter of weighing competing goods: a person might hold that he or she does not approve of Biden’s behaviour but believe he has the strongest chance against Trump.
Even setting aside the fact these allegations could continue and polls show other candidates to be just as strong against the president, this kind of reasoning discards the fact primaries present an opportunity to build momentum around candidates.
Why deploy time, energy, money and public relations efforts to try to explain why Biden’s behaviour toward women is all right or his accusers are not credible when there are more than a dozen other candidates who don’t force this dilemma?
One could still maintain that, based on policies (and what has Biden proposed?) or experience, Biden is still the best of the bunch. But one would have to maintain those factors make biting all the above bullets worthwhile.
With so many other viable candidates in the race, the most important question to answer is whether Biden’s potential candidacy is worth all those hazards. And it seems to me it’s not. (© The Washington Post)
Source: Read Full Article