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Women’s groups and prominent feminist figures have remained almost universally silent over a former staffer’s accusation of sexual misconduct against former Vice President Joe Biden—including those individuals and groups who came to express regret for how the Democratic Party handled similar accusations made against President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
The collective non-response from mostly Democrat-aligned groups comes as potential female running mates struggle themselves in responding to the Biden allegation, which has the potential to upend his campaign against President Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women in alleged incidents spanning decades. And it echoes the division among progressives when the #MeToo movement revived scrutiny of Clinton’s own alleged sexual misconduct.
The Daily Beast contacted 10 top national pro-women organizations for this story, including Emily’s List, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the National Organization for Women. Most organizations did not respond to a detailed request for comment about the allegation by Tara Reade, a former staff assistant in Biden’s Senate office who has accused the former vice president of forcibly penetrating her with his fingers in the early 1990s. Others replied and did not provide a statement.
One prominent women’s political group cited a scheduling conflict and asked to be kept “in mind for other opportunities!” When pressed if the following day would work better, an associate said it would not, citing another scheduling conflict.
The near-total lack of acknowledgement from nearly a dozen leading pro-women organizations comes as new corroboration has emerged with respect to the allegation, which the Biden campaign has categorically denied. Neither the Biden campaign nor Reade responded to requests from The Daily Beast for comment on Tuesday.
It also is taking place as prominent elected women in the Democratic Party rally to Biden’s side. On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton became the latest to offer her endorsement of Biden’s candidacy—a symbolic passing of the torch from one presidential candidate to another, but a moment that also served as a reminder of moments in recent party history when accusers were almost uniformly dismissed.
In 2017, attorney Patricia Ireland, who served as president of the National Organization for Women for the entirety of the Clinton administration, told the Washington Post that she wished she had “done more to be supportive” of Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who alleges that Bill Clinton sexually harassed her during his time as governor.
“For Paula Jones, there were nice distinctions that people made: She didn’t work for him, he didn’t have the power to hire or fire her,” Ireland said at the time. “But that ignores the reality that he was a very powerful man.”
During the same period, feminist icon Gloria Steinem told the Guardian that she regretted some parts of her aggressive defense of Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, including a New York Times op-ed in which she dismissed accusations of sexual misconduct against the president. “Even if the allegations are true,” Steinem wrote in the 1998 op-ed, “the President is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb and reckless pass. President Clinton took ‘no’ for an answer.”
Steinem told the Guardian that “I wouldn’t write the same thing now because there’s probably more known about other women now. I’m not sure… What you write in one decade you don’t necessarily write in the next.”
But neither Ireland nor Steinem responded to a request for comment about Reade’s accusations against Biden. Bill Clinton has long denied Jones’ claims, settling a lawsuit she filed in 1998 for $850,000 with no apology or admission of wrongdoing.
Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Reade accused Hillary Clinton of “enabling a sexual predator.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-have-womens-groups-gone-dead-silent-on-biden-assault-accusation
The collective non-response from mostly Democrat-aligned groups comes as potential female running mates struggle themselves in responding to the Biden allegation, which has the potential to upend his campaign against President Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women in alleged incidents spanning decades. And it echoes the division among progressives when the #MeToo movement revived scrutiny of Clinton’s own alleged sexual misconduct.
The Daily Beast contacted 10 top national pro-women organizations for this story, including Emily’s List, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the National Organization for Women. Most organizations did not respond to a detailed request for comment about the allegation by Tara Reade, a former staff assistant in Biden’s Senate office who has accused the former vice president of forcibly penetrating her with his fingers in the early 1990s. Others replied and did not provide a statement.
One prominent women’s political group cited a scheduling conflict and asked to be kept “in mind for other opportunities!” When pressed if the following day would work better, an associate said it would not, citing another scheduling conflict.
The near-total lack of acknowledgement from nearly a dozen leading pro-women organizations comes as new corroboration has emerged with respect to the allegation, which the Biden campaign has categorically denied. Neither the Biden campaign nor Reade responded to requests from The Daily Beast for comment on Tuesday.
It also is taking place as prominent elected women in the Democratic Party rally to Biden’s side. On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton became the latest to offer her endorsement of Biden’s candidacy—a symbolic passing of the torch from one presidential candidate to another, but a moment that also served as a reminder of moments in recent party history when accusers were almost uniformly dismissed.
In 2017, attorney Patricia Ireland, who served as president of the National Organization for Women for the entirety of the Clinton administration, told the Washington Post that she wished she had “done more to be supportive” of Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who alleges that Bill Clinton sexually harassed her during his time as governor.
“For Paula Jones, there were nice distinctions that people made: She didn’t work for him, he didn’t have the power to hire or fire her,” Ireland said at the time. “But that ignores the reality that he was a very powerful man.”
During the same period, feminist icon Gloria Steinem told the Guardian that she regretted some parts of her aggressive defense of Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, including a New York Times op-ed in which she dismissed accusations of sexual misconduct against the president. “Even if the allegations are true,” Steinem wrote in the 1998 op-ed, “the President is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb and reckless pass. President Clinton took ‘no’ for an answer.”
Steinem told the Guardian that “I wouldn’t write the same thing now because there’s probably more known about other women now. I’m not sure… What you write in one decade you don’t necessarily write in the next.”
But neither Ireland nor Steinem responded to a request for comment about Reade’s accusations against Biden. Bill Clinton has long denied Jones’ claims, settling a lawsuit she filed in 1998 for $850,000 with no apology or admission of wrongdoing.
Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Reade accused Hillary Clinton of “enabling a sexual predator.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-have-womens-groups-gone-dead-silent-on-biden-assault-accusation
