In Hillary's Continued Defense of Bill's Past, a Primer on Power

Hillary Clinton is one of those people.

On Sunday, during a segment on CBS Sunday Morning, the former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee said that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, did not abuse his power when he had an affair with Monica Lewinsky because she was over 18 years of age. “She was an adult,” Clinton said.

Hillary Clinton is not responsible for her husband’s actions, and, sure, it’s disappointing that during a segment discussing the power of women Clinton was asked about her husband’s past. But make no mistake, Hillary Clinton is wrong. Turning 18 doesn’t magically protect you from sexual assault or harassment, nor does it give a lifetime pass to the men who prey on adult women in and outside of the workplace. Lewinsky was a 22-year-old intern having a sexual relationship with a 49-year-old president of the United States—the power dynamics alone are unquestionable. At any age, if Lewinsky had turned down Bill Clinton’s advances she would have been turning down the advances of a president: the position he held as a politician could not, and should not, be separated, especially in the workplace.

By continuing to stand by her husband, Clinton encapsulated what so many women, particularly white women, across this country are willing to do for the men they know, love, and revere: excuse away their problematic if not outright abusive actions.

After sexual assault allegations against now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh surfaced, a reported 43 percent of white women believed he was innocent and supported his nomination. Many of those women rallied around Kavanaugh, going so far as to defend the actions Dr. Christine Blasey Ford alleged. A mom to two teenage daughters and avid Trump supporter went on national television to tell the world, and her daughters, that groping was “no big deal.” She even asked her daughters on air, “I mean, how many guys do you know who think that’s no big deal? It’s no big deal.” Sixty-four women and friends of Kavanaugh signed a letter supporting him. During a segment on CNN, Judicial Crisis Networks’ Carrie Severino described the allegations levied against Kavanaugh as nothing more than “just horseplay.” “Women for Brett Kavanaugh” organized a bus tour, white moms claimed they feared for their white sons, and 85 former friends and colleagues of Kavanaugh defended him at a press conference in Washington, D.C.

Sixty-three percent of white women voted for Roy Moore during Alabama’s special election and after he was accused of sexual assault by nine women. Fifty-three percent of white women voted for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election, after he was accused of sexual assault or harassment by at least 20 women and after he bragged about committing sexual assault on tape.

And, sadly, this is not a new trend. These are “the same 53 percent who put their racial privilege ahead of their second-class gender status in 2016 by voting to uphold a system that values only their whiteness, just as they have for decades,” Alexis Grenell recently wrote for The New York Times. “Since 1952, white women have broken for Democratic presidential candidates only twice: in the 1964 and 1996 elections.” Like Clinton, white women know that if they stand by white men in positions of power they stand to benefit, even if it comes as a cost to other women, even if it ends up hurting them in the end, and even if it means the erosion of women’s rights. To those who witness injustice and either look the other way or defend it head-on, being in proximity to power is more valuable than challenging it.

While white women have historically supported Republican candidates that work to strip them of their rights, sexual violence isn’t bipartisan. Women on both sides of the political aisle are guilty of defending the men they admire, regardless of their actions and as Hillary Clinton reminds us. When then-Senator Al Franken was accused of sexual misconduct, the women of SNL penned a letter supporting him. Franken later resigned, as did New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman after four women accused him of physical abuse, which also speaks to the bar Democrats are held to in relation to the non-existent bar used to measure Republican morality. While one political party seems comfortable supporting men accused of pedophilia and sexual assault, and while the other watches men accused of sexual misconduct resign, women are still stuck in the middle—drawing their alliances and, in a shocking number of cases, defending the men they hold dear as the chips fall where they may.

It could easily be argued that Bill Clinton hurt Hillary’s presidential campaign. The whataboutism alone, facilitated by then-presidential candidate Trump’s decision to stand by Clinton’s accusers as he simultaneously vilified his own, was maddening. And the reasons she has continued to defend her husband are sure to be as personal as they are political. But one thing is for certain: Hillary’s inability to call Bill’s actions exactly what they were—an abuse of power—hurts all women. It hurts the 81 percent of women who experience sexual harassment in the workplace, it hurts the 85 percent of women ages 18 and up who are victims of sexual assault, and it hurts the young women across the country who are counting down the days until they turn 18 and wondering if what little protections afforded to them will disappear entirely.