"How dare they question a woman's lived experience?"
Isn't that what we keep hearing when a woman claims a SCOTUS nominee raped her 30 years ago when he was 17, or that the president raped her in a Barney's changing room or simply that some lacrosse players at Duke raped her during a party? Why is this so different that we do not hear "women don't lie about rape" and "women should always be believed" by radical feminists?
The point is to believe (instead of an automatic dismissal response of the rape apologists) and investigate. In other words, take the accusation seriously enough to investigate.
How hard is that really to understand?
Might I add that there is a difference between believing something that another person says/writes and using that to make a judgment about whether you support someone for public office--or invite them to dinner or let your kid babysit at their house or stay the night at a sleep over VS having enough evidence to charge, prosecute and convict an accused person.
For example: I did not require E.Jean Carroll's allegations nor the allegations made by the couple of dozen other women against Trump to believe that he is a creep and sexual predator. His own words were sufficient for that. Frankly, I did not need those disgusting words caught on tape to think that Trump is unfit in every way to be POTUS. His proclivities of regarding women as objects to be used whenever he wants is simply another disgusting layer of moral failure on top of many other layers of moral failure which frankly are trivial in comparison with his mental decline and general ineptitude and the fact that he has none of the skills nor the requisite traits to acquire those skills or even to recognize his own deficits to be an even semi-competent POTUS. I almost wish that they wouldn't talk about his moral failings, sexual assaults, the abysmal way he treats women, his views on minorities, and so on because as disgusting as those all are, they pale in comparison to his lack of character in general, his total lack of integrity, and his total unfitness for the position in which he is now placed. I cannot say 'serves' because I don't think he serves in any normal way of understanding the word.
I think that all of this talk of his racism, his sexism, his violence against women is just a distraction away from his gross incompetence. BTW, I think the racism, the sexism and his history of violence against women (or anyone else) are absolutely disqualifying if taken each one alone, much less together. But even taken together, those are just trivial compared to his lack of ability in any meaningful way to carry out the duties of POTUS and his inability to recognize his shortcomings. He is a walking --or waddling clusterfuck of a president and I am heartily ashamed of the entire human race that he was ever elected even hall monitor.
Reading the transcript of Tara Reade's account of what happened brings up some practical questions for me. I am not bothered by an evolving or changing story. If things happened as she describes, it would be traumatic and shocking. Most trauma victims do not clearly remember all details of the traumatic event immediately. Instead, bits and pieces come back. So, that doesn't bother me. Some of the more practical points do. The description she gives of events make it seem unlikely that what she says happened actually happened. But perhaps something similar did happen. That would be an extremely dramatic departure from other 'questionable' behavior described by other women, the most serious of which is that Biden apparently touched the thigh of a young woman seated next to him at a conference. Which may or may not have been intentional or may or may not have had (from Biden's perspective) any sexual connotations while it might well have seemed to be a sexual overture to the young woman.
There are many reasons that I don't find Joe Biden to be a great candidate but he's the one we're stuck with. Because apparently it's much more important to nominate doddering old white guys as the 'safe' candidate than to nominate say: a woman with extremely good credentials and demonstrated leadership. I've been dealing with this shit all my life and I no longer allow myself to be disappointed or surprised. Men are afraid of women in power. They feel reassured by old white men.
