To the Editor:
I would like to say thank you to seniors Christine Carter and Nicky Schmidt for their courage and emotional strength, not just in taking on and completing their fellowship projects, but also in taking their written projects one step further and presenting them in person. As I sat with a tightly-packed, standing room only audience of my peers, I was both proud and ashamed of the student body here at Dartmouth.
While half of my peers here are men, only a small handful were present at the presentation. I was immensely proud of those men who did attend, but I felt ashamed of those who did not. You are my friends, my equals, I value your opinions and it hurts when only a few of you care enough to come out and support your peers who spent their time, energy and emotion to give something back to the community we share.
I am not chastising anyone for not attending. We all have busy schedules and cannot go to every lecture, no matter how much we would like to, but I still wondered why so few men were there. Did you not feel invited? It could be possible. Maybe the men of Dartmouth thought discussions on date rape and battered women might turn into a group male bashing, or might be an event that "only women would understand." I'm sure that was not the intention of the discussion, but maybe you were unsure, unaware of the intentions.
With a day left in Sexual Assault Awareness Week, I would like to make a special invitation to Dartmouth's male community to participate in its events, and say that this week is not for women to gather together to male bash or burn bras. The purpose of it is to communicate, educate and raise awareness of everyone in the community about issues of sex.
SUZANNE ROSEN '95
