Bill Clinton's past re-examined in light of Weinstein and Trump

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/19/bill-clinton-sexual-misconduct-allegations-past

 

Among those who came to Clinton’s defence two decades ago was Gloria Steinemwho argued in a 1998 New York Times column that while she accepted Jones account that Clinton had exposed himself and harassed her, feminists were right to resist pressure for his impeachment or resignation because his policies in favour of women were more important.

At the time, she wrote: “If the President had behaved with comparable insensitivity toward environmentalists, and at the same time remained their most crucial champion and bulwark against an anti-environmental Congress, would they be expected to desert him? I don’t think so. If President Clinton were as vital to preserving freedom of speech as he is to preserving reproductive freedom, would journalists be condemned as “inconsistent” for refusing to suggest he resign? Forget it.”

Steinem described the allegations made by Kathleen Willey, a White House volunteer, that Clinton felt her breasts and pushed her hand into his groin in the Oval Office as a “clumsy sexual pass”, and questioned the woman’s motives.

The price for the accusers was high. Lewinsky has said her affair with Clinton was consensual and that the real abuse came after it was exposed.

 “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any “abuse” came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position,” she wrote in Vanity Fair in 2014 . Lewinsky said that she remained troubled that feminists did not speak up for her. “I sorely wished for some sign of understanding from the feminist camp. Some good, old-fashioned, girl-on-girl support was much in need. None came. Given the issues at play – gender politics, sex in the workplace – you’d think they would have spoken up. They didn’t. I understood their dilemma: Bill Clinton had been a president “friendly” to women’s causes,” she wrote.