I never thought I’d see the day when former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump would make headlines over a public spat—started by Biden, no less. Yet here we are in the latest episode of “Life in the Upside Down,” aka “Trump’s America,” watching Trump and Biden go at each other while the reason why Biden was even speaking in the first place is basically ignored.
This is in no way a personal attack on Biden nor a suggestion to completely ban him from the court of public opinion. Yes, he’s an advocate who puts his money where his (sometimes off-color) mouth is. As an anti-rape advocate myself, I’ve personally met him. However, that doesn’t mean everything he says is going to be on point; we are all human.
In this case, Biden was way off point when he first made headlines after rightfully talking shit about our Sexual-Predator-in-Chief at a rally for the anti-rape campaign “It’s On Us” at the University of Miami. A particular part raised many eyebrows.
A guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, 'I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it.’
They asked me if I’d like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said, 'If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.'
I've been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life. I'm a pretty damn good athlete. Any guy who talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room.
Listen, I get that Biden is disgusted by Trump. On election night, I was nauseated by the pure fact that millions of Americans willingly voted for an unabashed sexual assailant. However, this type of rhetoric does more harm than good, because it undermines Biden’s mission of ending sexual assault.
This current “environment” that we live in essentially treats rape like it’s no big deal. There are certain facets of our society that are foundational to why America is willing to settle for rapists as their presidents, senators, and celebrated filmmakers. We live in a society that still doesn’t truly understand sexual assault and the ways our individual actions and culture at large allow them to harm with impunity. But people won’t learn by getting beat up in the locker room. That cannot coincide with a rape-free environment.
There are a lot of cultural norms behind why society is still overwhelmingly complacent about rape culture. One of them is at the core of Biden’s own “locker room talk”: toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity says the only way to be a man is to be violent, emotionless, and dominate women. The idea that boys would handle hearing a teammate brag about sexual assault by physically assaulting him is a manifestation of that.
Also, the idea that sexual predators are always unattractive is just a really unhelpful thing to say. There’s really no reason to attack someone’s appearance if they’re a rapist. Isn’t what’s inside enough of an ugly thing about them to denounce? Trump tried to say one of his victims is lying because she’s too ugly to assault. Rape is about power, not sex. His choice to publicly humiliate his victims emphasizes that.
If this was an attempt to talk about how things were back in the day, don’t believe the idea that sexual assault was less prevalent during Biden and Trump’s adolescence. Rates of rape have been declining for decades. We’re hearing more victim stories—not because of sexual violence, but because we’re increasingly creating a world where survivors’ words, the most powerful tool against rape culture, can be heard.
In short, we’re not going to stop men from raping by beating people up. Individual acts of violence will not end the systemic problem with rape culture in our society. When Biden’s out as a public figure and leader in the movement to end sexual violence, he should leave this type of locker room trash talk out of it.
Watch the clip below: