In 2017, American actress Alyssa Milano became one of the early advocates for the #MeToo movement when she tweeted, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” Women across the globe responded, going public with their stories and exposing a silent and age-old pandemic of sexual harassment and assault. The movement spread like wildfire, with powerful and previously seemingly impervious men facing public reckonings on a weekly basis. It signaled a painful and long-overdue reckoning, and perhaps the dawning of a more just age.
In contrast, a week ago, the actress took to Twitter again–this time, to explain her self-described “silence” over sexual assault allegations against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made by ex-Senate aide Tara Reade. In an interview, Milano said, “I just don’t feel comfortable throwing away a decent man that I’ve known for 15 years in this time of complete chaos without there being a thorough investigation.”
The backlash was swift, with conservatives pointing to a supposed liberal hypocrisy due to the perceived lack of outrage, while certain sections of Progressives and feminists accused Milano of being a hypocrite and turning her back on Reade because she supported Biden politically. Given that Milano is one of the champions of the #MeToo movement, many women now fear that her choice to believe Biden over Reade could delegitimize and derail the movement by drawing into question the selective use of the phrase “believe women”.
While some celebrity #MeToo activists have echoed Milano’s stance, others, like Rose McGowan–one of the victims of convicted rapist and disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein–have lambasted Milano, calling her a fraud. Such instances bring to the view that the #MeToo movement is facing a new challenge: how to grapple with the allegations against Biden without tearing itself apart in the era of hyper-partisanship.
Supporters of President Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by multiple women himself, have seized on Biden and other Democrats’ past comments about believing women’s accusations as proof of hypocrisy. For people on the other side of the political spectrum in America, the Democratic establishment and mainstream media are doing for Joe Biden what they did for Bill Clinton throughout the ’90s: deflect, deny and defend their man against a credible sex assault accusation– simply because he’s their guy. Hence, after making it more socially acceptable for sexual assault survivors to come forward and help bring down dozens of powerful men, there is a real threat that the MeToo movement will be subjected to the partisan politics of today and ultimately lose its legitimacy if men across the political aisle aren’t subjected to the same, universal standards.
Sarah Ann Masse, one of the numerous women who accused Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct, alluded to this challenge and acknowledged that accusations against Biden were being treated differently. In an interview, she said, “the disgusting behavior that Christine Blasey Ford had to deal with from the right is the disgusting behavior that Tara Reade is having to deal with from many on the left.”
On Friday Joe Biden made his first public comment on the allegation that he sexually assaulted former Senate staffer Tara Reade in 1993. “This never happened, and when she first made the claim, we made it clear that it never happened, and it’s as simple as that,” the former vice-president said on an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. However, given how Biden has previously sought to cover-up allegations against him, his protestations must be viewed with a layer of scrutiny. On April 12, Biden’s campaign operatives called up the New York Times and demanded that the paper drop the following sentence: “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.”
In 2019, Reade alleged that her ex-boss made her uncomfortable with shoulder or neck rubbing and asked her to serve drinks at an event because he liked her legs. However, she came back earlier this year with the more explosive charge that Biden had backed her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers. Reade went public with the claims on a podcast in March 2020 with progressive Katie Halper and has since spoken with various news organizations about the allegations. Reade felt empowered to come forward with her allegations after as many as seven other women within the past year said that Biden had made them uncomfortable with things like unwelcome touching or hair-sniffing.
Two former interns overseen by Reade told the New York Times that Reade never told them about any inappropriate behavior at the time, but confirmed that she abruptly stopped working with them. This week, two more women went on the record to support Reade's account. Lorraine Sanchez, who worked with Reade in the California state Senate, and Reade's former neighbor, Lynda LaCasse (a Biden supporter), both confirmed that Reade told them about the alleged rape in detail around the time of the event.
All this makes for a strong case that Reade did not make up the story simply to sink Biden’s campaign and that, at the very least, a thorough investigation is warranted. While her accounts to the press have changed, that is very common among #MeToo stories. Victims often struggle to come forward at all out of shame, or fear of backlash, or the fear that they won’t be believed. Hearing that other women went through the same experience with the same man often empowers them to divulge details that they previously felt uncomfortable doing. Undoubtedly, repeated inconsistencies have to be taken into consideration while evaluating the credibility of a specific allegation, but it goes without saying that every sexual assault victim doesn’t need to be perfectly consistent for their claims to have merit and not be dismissed.
A cavalier dismissal of Ms. Reade’s story, therefore, runs the risk of advancing misconceptions about sexual assault and its aftermath. This is collateral damage that Democrats–who have spent the last few years championing the #MeToo movement–should be loath to incur. Democrats who subject Ms. Reade’s allegations to a level of scrutiny not widely applied to accusers in similar circumstances also open up past and future cases to reproachful disregard.
Moreover, Democratic partisans have thus far tried to relieve their cognitive dissonance by casting doubt on the story or attacking Reade. In The New York Times, Michelle Goldberg argued that, while the accusation can’t be dismissed out of hand, Reade’s praise of Vladimir Putin and changing story also cast doubt on her story.
The cognitive dissonance with which some democratic politicians and supporters have approached these allegations has inadvertently offered Republicans the opportunity to position themselves as the new champions of the #MeToo movement. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, for example, seems to have suddenly become a massive #MeToo advocate. “Believe all women means all women,” Conway told Fox News on Friday.
Conservatives have pointed out the difference in the way Democrats and the mainstream media treated the sexual assault allegations against supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh versus the allegations against Biden. When confronted with a question about those double standards on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi refused to acknowledge the hypocrisy, saying that she didn’t need a “lecture or a speech” and that “Joe Biden is Joe Biden”.
Ultimately, Biden’s candidacy will likely survive the Reade allegations. Thus, it appears that the momentum of the #MeToo movement has been derailed by toxic partisan politics as Democrats appear to be looking the other way in order to avoid a second Trump term. Even the woman who created the hashtag, Tamara Burke, has complained that the movement has become “unrecognizable” and hinted that it is in danger of losing popular support.
This case has stirred up deep and possibly irreparable divisions within the #MeToo movement and threatens to further reduce the limited avenues for justice for women that the movement opened up. Indeed, Trump is already using the Democrats’ defense of Biden to discredit his own accusers. When asked about the Reade allegations by reporters on Thursday he mused that Biden might have been falsely accused. “It could be false accusations. I know all about false accusations,” he said. “I’ve been falsely charged numerous times, and there is such a thing.”
#MeToo has successfully created new social norms around sexual misconduct. However, the Democrats’ unwillingness to uphold these norms when one of their own is accused of sexual misconduct threatens to move us back into the pre-#MeToo era, wherein abuses committed by powerful politicians go unnoticed and unchecked. Moreover, if certain sections of liberals and progressives in the US keep on downplaying allegations against Biden, it will be used as ammunition every single time someone on the right is accused of sexual assault. This is highly counterproductive to the efforts of the #MeToo movement as it would simply result in a ‘whataboutism’ shouting match, rather than encouraging ubiquitous and apolitical accountability. As survivors around the world watch these events unfold and see how political and ideological differences take precedence over women’s rights, those who have not come forward with their stories may now be further discouraged from ever doing so.
As Sarah Jones wrote in New York Magazine: “The movement exists to critique power: to identify its abuses and demand its redistribution. Accept that, and you don’t serve the political class; you’re in tension with it. That’s uncomfortable. That’s inconvenient. That’s the point.”
Image Source: The Week