This post has been updated.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) on Wednesday dismissed a question posed by CNN host Jake Tapper about whether a disagreement between two women senators would undermine a push to address sexual assault in the military.
“But is it complicated at all for your cause, the fact that your chief rival in this is a — is a fellow Democratic woman senator?” Tapper asked Gillibrand on “The Lead” about Sen. Claire McCaskill’s (D-MO) competing bill to address sexual assault in the military.
“I don’t think so,” Gillibrand responded. “I mean, obviously, women are not a monolith. We don’t agree on everything.”
McCaskill also addressed the focus on her disagreement with Gillibrand in an interview on MSNBC’s “Now With Alex Wagner” earlier in February.
“I’m a little upset that there’s been so much attention to the fact that two women disagree on something,” McCaskill said when asked about Gillibrand’s legislation. “I wonder if there would be so much attention if men disagreed?”
Much of the attention paid to sexual assault in the military focuses on women. However, the New York Times has pointed out that the majority victims of such attacks are men.
