Critics to Joe Biden: You’re Missing the Point

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/us/joe-biden-women-video.html

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“He stopped treating me like a peer the moment he touched me.”

— Lucy Flores, a former Nevada assemblywoman who said Joseph R. Biden Jr. inappropriately touched and kissed her in 2014

On Wednesday, in a video he posted on Twitter, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. acknowledged claims that he had made some women uncomfortable over the years by touching them in ways that were too familiar — like pulling them in close or extended hugging.

He didn’t apologize, but instead said that his inclination to lavish affection on women and girls might not be appropriate in this day and age. He vowed to “be more mindful and respectful of people’s personal space.”

“Social norms have begun to change,” Biden, 76, said in the video, which was prompted by the women who have come forward in the past week with stories about his unwanted touching — starting with Lucy Flores, the former Nevada assemblywoman who wrote an essay about her 2014 encounter with him.

“They’ve shifted,” Biden said, “and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset and I get it. I get it. I hear what they’re saying.”

[READ MORE: Biden’s Tactile Politics Threaten His Return in the #MeToo Era]

But some of the women who have spoken out told The Washington Post that he had missed a crucial point: Yes, times have changed, they said, but not because women have grown more sensitive to violations of their personal space, but because they are more emboldened to speak out.

Sofie Karasek, who appeared on stage with Lady Gaga at the 2016 Oscars alongside dozens of other sexual assault victims, said it took her some time to realize how uncomfortable she had been made to feel by the former vice president, whom she’d met after the ceremony (Biden had introduced the performance).

He had clasped Karasek’s hands and placed his forehead against hers, a moment captured in a widely shared photograph — a copy of which she kept framed in her home for a while. She took it down as #MeToo began gaining ground.

In the video, Biden “still didn’t take ownership in the way that he needs to,” Karasek told The Post. “Too often it doesn’t matter how the woman feels about it or they just assume that they’re fine with it.”

Vail Kohnert-Yount, a White House intern in 2013 who said Biden once pressed his forehead into hers and called her a “pretty girl” when she had expected a handshake, said that she didn’t consider her experience “sexual assault or harassment,” but that “it was the kind of inappropriate behavior that makes many women feel uncomfortable and unequal in the workplace.”

Of the video, she said: “To me this is not mainly about whether Joe Biden has adequate respect for personal space. It’s about women deserving equal respect in the workplace.”

[READ MORE: How Joe Biden’s Touching Resonated With Readers]

Even as these accounts have emerged, plenty of women have come to Biden’s defense, saying that his actions have been misconstrued.

Erin Bilbray, a former Democratic congressional candidate from Nevada, said that Biden had hugged and kissed her on the head during a meet-and-greet in 2014. “It was a very nurturing, supportive action,” Bilbray said on Facebook. “It was not anything other than that.”

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said Biden is “a very affectionate individual who is a natural toucher.” And Meghan McCain called him “one of the truly decent and compassionate men in all of American politics.”

Whether Biden’s prospects will be affected (he is expected to announce soon whether he will seek the presidency) remains uncertain, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week that she didn’t think the allegations were “disqualifying,” suggesting that the discord is somewhat rooted in generational differences.

“He has to understand in the world that we’re in now that people’s space is important to them,” Pelosi, 79, said. “What’s important is how they receive it and not necessarily how you intended it.”

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Here are five articles from The Times you might have missed.

“I know that fear.” The House turned back a furious lobbying campaign by the N.R.A. and voted to expand gun controls on domestic abusers in a revamped Violence Against Women Act. [Read the story]

“It was different for a woman.” Cristine Pedersen’s father raised her under the Marine Corps’ core values, but when she joined the service, her experience was not at all like her father’s. [Read the story]

“I derive power from my femininity.” A look at 90 years of New York City congresswomen. [Read the story]

“This is a woman who just takes a photo — a selfie of herself and nothing else.” A teacher was fired after a student obtained a topless selfie of her, stirring a debate over gender equity. [Read the story]

“Who counts as a woman?” From our Opinion pages, the attempt to exclude transgender women from the ranks of women reinforces the dangerous idea that there is a right way to be female. [Read the story]

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As people debate the appropriateness of Joe Biden’s actions — and await his decision on whether to run for president — he has received renewed criticism for his handling of Anita Hill’s testimony during Justice Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearing in 1991. Biden, then a senator from Delaware, led the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a front-page New York Times article at the time, Maureen Dowd, then a Washington correspondent, wrote that the hearing “offered a rare look into the mechanics of power and decision-making in Washington, a city where men have always made the rules and the Senate remains an overwhelmingly male club.”

In a speech last week, Biden voiced regret over the hearing. Hill “faced a committee that didn’t fully understand what the hell this was all about,” he said. “To this day, I regret I couldn’t give her the kind of hearing she deserved. I wish I could have done something.”

Read past articles here.