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      Joe Biden, Rape Culture, and Living in the Dark

      Joe Biden, Rape Culture, and Living in the Dark

      It's hard when someone you like, someone you think is a good man or woman, is accused of rape. Our first instinct is to not believe it. That's normal. But that cannot be the end.

      Anthony Zenkus
      May 27, 2020

      Rape culture is defined by Oxford as "a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse". When Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Brock Turner to 6 months in jail (he ended up serving only 3) for raping an unconscious woman, that was an example of rape culture. When the teenage football players who raped a girl in Steubenville, Ohio received more public sympathy than their victim, that was an example of rape culture. When the GOP defended Brett Kavanaugh as he was being accused of sexual assault by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, that was an example of rape culture, too. And when Nancy Pelosi said "Joe Biden is Joe Biden", despite 8 women having come forward in 2019 with allegations of inappropriate non-consensual touch against him and despite Tara Reade coming forward with a disturbing allegation of digital rape, that, too was an example of rape culture.

      Rape culture holds victims to a higher standard than it does abusers. Rape culture allows us to turn a victim's life upside down, looking at every tweet, post, public or private statement, for any inconsistencies, even when it has nothing to do with the crime perpetrated against them. Especially when it has nothing to do with that crime. Rape culture does this while making sure we're never allowed to ask the same things of the alleged perpetrator. We don't turn their lives upside down. We ask them for a denial, they give it, and then we move on. Nancy Pelosi, in a recent CNN interview, said she was done talking about the Tara Reade allegations. Case closed. Nothing to see here. Move along. Rape culture.

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      Opinion
      Why Has the Media Ignored Sexual Assault and Misbehaviour Allegations Against Biden?

      Why Has the Media Ignored Sexual Assault and Misbehaviour Allegations Against Biden?

      Conservatives who didn’t care about the multiple sexual assault allegations against Trump have seized on the accusations while liberals turn a blind eye.

      Arwa Mahdawi
      Mar 30, 2020

      Why are sexual assault and misbehaviour allegations against Biden being ignored?

      Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has been accused of sexual assault by a former staffer. Tara Reade, who worked with Biden when he was a Delaware senator, alleges he inappropriately touched her and penetrated her with his fingers without consent in 1993.

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      Opinion
      There Goes the Rule of Law

      There Goes the Rule of Law

      A conversation on how the U.S. courts have Trump's back.

      Bill Moyers
      Dahlia Lithwick
      Mar 23, 2020

      Dahlia Lithwick: More and more, we're seeing the court rubber stamping the Trump agenda and when the courts have become corrupted, I think it's incumbent on people to say, "This court is not recognizable to me. It's not doing anything that looks like justice."

      Dahlia Lithwick is a Supreme Court watcher, senior editor at Slate.com, and a contributing editor for Newsweek. She's been honored as one of the country's best legal commentators. As the coronavirus stalks America, she talks on the phone with Bill Moyers about the rule of law and politics.

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      Opinion
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