White House Event Spotlights Biden Legacy: Fighting Against Gender-Based Violence at Home and Abroad

On September 12, 2024, I attended the White House’s thirtieth anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the landmark law that Joe Biden championed as a senator, establishing legal services and protections to address and respond to gender-based violence (GBV), such as experiencing sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. In celebrating the historic legislation on the South Lawn, President Biden, survivors, and advocates reflected on the tremendous impacts of VAWA, as well as the global ripple effects set in motion by this civil rights law. 

As president, Biden has continued his legacy by strengthening VAWA by signing the 2022 VAWA Reauthorization Act and issuing the first-ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence: Strategies for Action in May 2023. That plan builds on the Biden-Harris administration’s 2022 U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally, which updates a 2012 global strategy.

Under an executive order, Biden established the first-ever White House Gender Policy Council (GPC), whose mission is to advance gender equity and equality across a broad range of domestic and foreign policy concerns. Notably, the GPC—led by Assistant to the President Jennifer Klein—published the inaugural National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, which called for the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. Many other countries have issued GBV national action plans. The U.S. National Plan was the result of an interagency process that created a framework for collaboration and coordination—both within government and with stakeholders and survivors across the country—to address a broad range of GBV matters, ranging from prevention to online GBV, gun -related GBV, and protections for immigrants, Indigenous women, women of color, and other marginalized women who experience GBV. 

Further, the GPC has established the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse to respond to the increasing threat of online harassment and abuse that technological development, deep fakes, and risk that artificial intelligence disproportionately poses toward vulnerable groups, including individuals based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other bases of discrimination. The Task Force’s final report was issued this past spring at the one-year anniversary celebration of the National Plan, where several agency leaders announced new initiatives, including the first woman chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Jessica Rosenworcel, who “called on auto manufacturers and wireless service providers to help protect survivors from the misuse of connected car tools by abusers by helping ensure that smart car services are not being used to stalk, harass, or intimidate survivors of domestic violence.”  

Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and Officer on Violence Against Women Rosie Hidalgo commemorated VAWA’s thirty-year anniversary at a Justice Department event on September 13—the day after the White House event. Former Biden Senate staffers, such as now Georgetown Law Professor Victoria Nourse, spoke about how Biden pioneered VAWA, significantly converting GBV from a matter treated as merely a domestic matter to a national civil rights matter. 

Biden is famous for championing VAWA, but his landmark legislation is less well-known for burgeoning into a global movement. In his remarks last week, President Biden said, “The Violence Against Women Act is my proudest legislative accomplishment in all the years I’ve served as senator, vice president, and president.” Indeed, from launching VAWA as a senator to bolstering and expanding it as president, this foundational law is a significant part of Biden’s legacy at home and abroad.