He seems to be owning his choice. And I think it is a positive thing for him to indicate his purposefulness in choosing a woman. I have no problem with bias if the intent is to create a foothold for a group of people that have been systematically shut out. I didn’t go back and forth, or contradict anything. I just acknowledge that I am not a mind reader and have no idea what he has or hasn’t done, or why.
Your giving benefit of a doubt to a selection process that is historically biased against anyone not white, male, Christian (someone the person in power is “comfortable with” LOL! Aka someone JUST LIKE THEMSELVES), shows a willing naivety meant to gaslight the masses into thinking its perfectly reasonable and normal for half the population to consistently be under represented in the highest offices.
It is not about the comfort of the President or the power class, it is what is believed to be best for the country, and there are many people that think that just the action of selecting a qualified woman for a Vice President, provides a needed message of righting wrongs, and changing with the times. Of course it is also important that there’s a mutual respect and desire to work together, as it would be with any working relationship. You seem to imply that both cannot be true: a commitment to choose a woman who is qualified and well-matched. All that is still important, or else you end up with John McCain and Sarah Palin. So Biden announcing that he intends to select a woman, is only a first step, but it’s an important step if the goal is to have a female VP.
If the negative of such a statement, is that it chafes those individuals who aren’t comfortable with an intentional roll back of their political monopoly, and the positive is that instead of simply acknowledging that women have an uphill battle, and patting oneself on the back for being “empathetic” enough just to recognize it, someone in position at the top of the hill has dropped a rope to make it a little easier for her to go up that hill, then I say bring on the bias. But as someone mentioned just above, I don’t think this is true bias on Biden’s part. Over 40 years in politics, and clearly he has no problem working with men, and like many in that scene, seems “unconsciously biased” towards working with men. If not for the recent social demand for a shift away from the status quo (Status Quo Joe), selecting a man would be natural and on-brand for him. So if anything this decision probably actively works AGAINST his bias; which should be an example for all of us.
First of all, glad that Biden is owning the choice. I haven't paid much attention to his responses after the fact.
For my statement that you were going back and forth, that wasn't worded correctly. All I'm saying is you keep saying things like perhaps he limited his choice to women when it seems given what he said that him deliberately choosing a woman is a fairly logical inference.
Now, for a lot of discussion we're having here about assuming motivations, you seem to be assuming a lot of motivations on my part (all in the negative), which is really not very nice :-).
Take your bolded statement. You say I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and am gaslighting and so on and so forth. That's factually innacurate. I never gave any benefit of the doubt to the process. I never said it was unbiased. I specifically talked about how Biden could have talked about the unconscious bias in it and that's why he was leaning towards a female VP to avoid that. If that's not enough for you, I'll say it explicitly - there is unconscious bias pretty much all the time for these things. My points also don't preclude that their could be other biases. Without someone coming out and saying it, though, that's much harder to know and requires, again, an assumption of intent. So no, I'm not gaslighting or giving anyone the benefit of the doubt and haven't, so please don't make assumptions.
Furthermore, you keep conflating arguments, talking about "it's not about the comfort of the president or whatnot." I never implied that we should consider the comfort of the president as in we should say, "oh it's ok that it happens." It's not OK. It's a problem, and we should acknowledge it as something that happens so we can address it, not to agree with it. You say "You seem to imply that both cannot be true: a commitment to choose a woman who is qualified and well-matched," but again, you're making significant assumptions on something I never said, so please don't make assumptions.
You are obviously for this bias. That's fine. Be for it. You don't seem to acknowledge any negative implications of this down. That's fine, but people can reasonable disagree with you on this without being this villain you seem so intent on painting people who disagree with you of being.