Letters to the Editor
Anna68
Published Letters: 158 Editor's Choice: 2
-
Well, here is a different spin
[Read the article: The myth of "rape hype"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lots of people are trying to explain why women enter college at a greater rate than men, and yet do not succeed in professional life at nearly the same rate. I've heard this phenomenon blamed on everything from childbearing to discrimination to sunspots to religion.
How about throwing in this factor:
There some uncounted percentage of college women who enter the workforce with untreated or even undiagnosed PSTD from rape or sexual assault while attending university.
It has been noted that veterans with PTSD have challenges reentering private life. Some do just fine, but others spiral into substance abuse and family problems. Too many end up homeless because the symptoms are overwhelming.
Some of these women do fine. Some get treatment and others don't, but they muddle along and go on with their lives. But, like veterans, others start abusing drugs and alcohol. And others have chronic marital problems ... or even problems finding someone to marry. Some overeat. Some are re-victimized.
I'll bet you an entire dollar that lots of these women under-perform professionally. They may seem fine on the surface, but they don't have confidence, they lose their edge, they second guess themselves, or they just get overwhelmed by PTSD symptoms under pressure.
This is not merely a problem for the women involved ... as if that would not be tragic enough ... but for their employers, their friends, their communities, their churches, their health professionals, and God knows their husbands and children! Not when we are talking about the sheer numbers of people involved.
We, as a society, lose the best contributions they might give.
-
I'm with SueN97
[Read the article: This just in: Women are stupid!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This article was forwarded to me to a friend who was offended by it, but to tell the truth: kind of meh? Women are dumb because we (and gay men of course) can't drive? Women are dumb because we watch Oprah? I mean, shiver me timbers, oh, wait, I mean: *snore* ....
-
Wait, you were fifteen?
[Read the article: Warning men about "gray rape"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So I froze and just allowed it to happen and then never talked to the guys again. Trust me, they knew I was not into it. One guy was even talking to his friend while it was happening as to why I couldn't just loosen up. I'm not talking about actual intercourse, just lots of unwanted touching. To make matters worse, on the first occasion at 15 I had an orgasm so that made the whole experience even more confusing since I was confused as to why my body was reacting to something I just wanted to stop.
I want to find a way to say this gently.
Maybe I don't have a full picture of this event, but you say this guy was feeling you up and was fully aware that you're not into it enough to have a conversation with his friend about your lack of response while he was doing it? (This begs the question, what was his friend doing there? but we'll go on ...)
I don't think that's gray rape or high pressure sex. That sounds an awful lot like plain old sexual assault. On a minor. Which depending on his age could be statuary rape as well.
(Romeo and Juliet clauses aside, there is a reason that is considered a crime. A young teenager is not expected to have sophisticated communication skills around sex, especially with someone older.)
It was certainly a horrible sexual initiation, even if you don't believe it was a crime.
My reaction is simply, I don't know if he'd count as a rapist, but he sure as hell was a bastard. And I don't doubt that experience has made it harder to say no to other people.
Either way, I don't think it was your fault this happened. And if it isn't rape, it was still by moral standards, just nasty and wrong.
-
ageism
[Read the article: Women and Clinton: Damned if they vote, damned if they don't?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What AKA perceives as ageism may simply be that it is downright shocking to see a Gen X candidacy at all.
Much has been made of the generational shift that Obama represents. I don't see him as disrespectful of Hillary Clinton per se, but I do see him as a challenge to Baby Boomer politicians and their political style. If that is a subset that includes her ... well ... it does.
Also, Obama has run a better boots on the ground campaign than she did. He just has. He put organizers in states that Democrats have not won since the early 60s. He has done a lot of local level organizing. He's good at it. He used to be a neighborhood organizer, so he knows how.
If they were both white men, that would be the story. I think it is racist and sexist and other assorted -ists that it *isn't* the story!
-
?????
[Read the article: "Women are stupid!" The discussion continues]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought Charlotte Allen's article was so self-evidently stupid that it did not require a response. Clearly I'm the minority opinion here but I thought the work spoke for itself. I do not understand what the hysteria is about.
Charlotte Allen clearly thinks *she* is a bit dim. Charlotte Allen has concluded that because she is also a woman, that "all women" must be an idiot like her. And we know this because women watch Oprah instead of, what? Spike TV? The WWF?
What is everyone afraid of? Do we fear that because Charlotte Allen says women are dumb, it is true? If she said the moon was made of fried mushrooms, would that be true? Or do we think men will nod sagely and agree with Allen? If they decide women are stupid on Allen's say-so, aren't they simply proving that men are stupid?
-
Do not underestimate the effect of the weather
[Read the article: Now that I've got my master's in writing ... I'm not writing!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I live in Chicago too and I'm a professional writer and many of my friends are writers. Everyone I know has hit some kind of massive weather related productivity-slump this year. This winter has been unusually cold, dark, snowy and soul sucking, even by the standards of a Chicago winter, and they are legend. It just stopped snowing *yesterday*!
I'd say, don't even start worrying about not being productive until April at least! I predict a rebound in early May.