Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway
From: sulak@ge-dab.ge.COM ("John M. Sulak")
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Help Needed -- Fostering Feminism
Summary: recommended reading
Message-ID: <4596@ge-dab.GE.COM>
Date: 29 Jun 90 16:10:22 GMT
References: <1990Jun25.174916.13530@agate.berkeley.edu>
Organization: GE Simulation & Controls, Daytona Beach, FL
Lines: 44
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu

In article <1990Jun25.174916.13530@agate.berkeley.edu>, pulos@violet.Berkeley.EDU writes:
> Recently, my younger cousin moved to the Bay Area to live with my
> family.  She has moved out here to escape an abusive father and a
> number of violent experiences.  The culture she comes from has
> indoctrinated her with some incredibly primitive ideas about the role of
> women.  She confided in me yesterday that she was raped several
> months ago by five of her "friends".  She almost seemed to believe
> that she had done something to deserve it.  Her abusive father used to
> call her a "slut" and a "whore."  Besides being raped, she has been
> the victim of attempted rape many times.  In almost all of the
> instances (that she told me about) the bastards claimed that she
> was somehow "asking for it."
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.



I'd strongly recommend that you obtain the following book for her as the
first one on the reading list [I don't think there is anything similar.]:

_The Right to Innocence, Healing the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse_
by Beverly Engel, M.F.C.C.

Ivy Books
(first Ballentine edition: March 1990)
published simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,
Toronto
ISBN 0-8041-0585-5

It would help any rape victim, but especially people whose introduction to
sex, regardless of age, was through physical force, threat of physical
force, or the power imbalance of a adult-child coercion.

It is not particularly a feminist book, but after the intro states that the
book is intended to help male victims as well, the remainder of the book is
filled with the feminist/sexist male-bashing use of the masculine pronoun
for the abuser and the feminine pronoun for the victim.
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^   If America's prisoners have too much freedom to be kept drug free,      ^
^   who would want to live in a drug free America?                          ^
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Standard Disclaimer: These may not be my opinions, my employer's opinions,
a devil's advocate's opinions, or anyone else's opinions. Are they opinions?
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