The Familiar Denials About Joe Biden (actually more about The Issue In General than Biden himself)

[WhiskeyGrinder]

I honestly don't know where this article should go. I feel like its best point, which I have excerpted below, is general enough for GD -- the point is NOT about Joe Biden, it's that we can use Biden's issues to talk about how society prioritizes men perspectives over women's. OTOH, if I put it in GD, it definitely seems like a story about Biden. Anyway, here's Wonderwall.

https://theslot.jezebel.com/the-familiar-denials-about-joe-biden-1833743748

Our political and justice system is poorly equipped to handle what Flores is asking for: difficult conversations about men’s sense of entitlement to women’s bodies, even in non-sexual contexts. The systems deal with binaries: guilty or innocent, good or bad, right or wrong. Flores is asking for an acknowledgement and reckoning with the creepy, unwanted behavior that falls somewhere in the middle, in which political leaders like Biden adopt higher standards of personal and professional conduct that go beyond whether behavior is criminal or not.

The question is not whether Biden should disappear from public life and end his presidential bid, or whether Biden is a really good guy to most women most of the time. Instead, Flores and Lappos are asking for an acknowledgement of conduct that doesn’t rise to the level of sexual assault, but is nevertheless demeaning, diminishing, and commonplace. To ignore them, or bog their stories down in a reactionary, bad faith interpretation of what these women have asked for—no one is advocating excommunicating Joe Biden, here—misses the bigger point: that we live in a culture which routinely values men’s intentions over women’s experiences, and here’s another small way in which that happens. There’s an easy fix for the problem Flores raises, and it’s not solved by getting rid of Biden. It’s solved by acknowledging, collectively, that Biden should do better, and the women around him deserve that.

[Demit]

1. It's a good piece. It's not being anti-Biden to say men should rein in their "friendly" touching.

That's the only issue. Men don't have some kind of right to touch women whenever they feel like it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Thanks for reading past the news angle. I agree with your take.

[IluvPitties]

5. Women do it too. Quite frequently, acutally.

People ain't robots.

[LongtimeAZDem]

9. This point seems to be ignored time and time again

[shanny]

3. this is it exactly:

"we live in a culture which routinely values men’s intentions over women’s experiences"

[IluvPitties]

4. To be honest, to me is about Biden

and all good people out there, of all genders, who like to pat in the back or hug people as a gesture of kindness. In a country drowning in gun violence, in bullying, in oppression against women and minorities, good people who are wired to express affection through some form of touch are being vilified and somehow dragged into the #metoo movement for political reasons.

Joe does not deserve this.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Well said

[LongtimeAZDem]

10. Exactly; enough with the "contact shaming".

[Gothmog]

7. I like this statement by Joe Biden

Link to tweet

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. He's a gifted man who has a lot to offer, and I'm interested to see how he puts these words into

actions. But he doesn't need to be president to do so.