Cuomo Advanced a Feminist Agenda. Was That Just Politics?

Critics have long grumbled that the governor championed women’s rights when it suited him but also used the cause for his own purposes.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo often boasts about the work he has done to change the world. On Tuesday, he expressed astonishment that the world had, in his telling, changed without him. In announcing his resignation, Mr. Cuomo recounted how he had learned — in reading a 165-page report accusing him of sexually harassing nearly a dozen women, and with the help of his three grown daughters — that perhaps he wasn’t the enlightened feminist ally he had meant to be. “In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn,” he said. “There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have.”