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Originally Posted by Low C Sharp
Aren't you eager to believe that your positive experience is representative?
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But wouldn't it almost have to be based on the fact that many GLOs survive and prosper over time?
I'm not saying my experience is universal, just that it's more likely to be typical because kids keep signing up for it year after year. If the experience weren't generally positive, why would they?
ETA:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Low C Sharp
IMHO, we ought to tread carefully before we judge what a rape survivor ought to feel when suddenly confronted with a reminder of the assault. I agree that if the attack is still affecting her daily life, then it's smart to seek help for that, but plenty of people seek help and still experience intrusive feelings about the trauma. A horror like that is not curable. Different people will recover at different speeds, and carry different permanent scars. Whatever her feelings may be twenty years later, they are valid, and saying that she ought to "get past it" and "move on" -- like that's just a choice -- is quite dismissive of her trauma and its consequences.
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About the article writer generally, I think you invite a different kind of response when you elect to publish a column in the New York Times.
If she were a someone that I knew personally, I don't think it would enter my head in a million years to even analyze her experience, must less try to judge how I thought a person SHOULD respond. You'd listen; you'd validate; you'd see if you could help; you might see if she wanted help finding a professional to work with in regards to how she felt about other women if she seemed to be asking you to do so.
But when one writes a newspaper column, you're making a public statement and inviting public response. And at the I-read-her-story-online level, it's perfectly appropriate to make judgments and reach conclusions based as much on your own experience as the one she related. The conclusion that I reached is that her sorority sisters were jerks, who may have been misinformed about her circumstances, but who in any case failed her in a time of crisis. But it doesn't actually say that much about Greek life or women that resonates with my experiences generally. Other reactions, obviously varied.
Hybrid Mode
