To the Editor:
First, let me say I do not condone any kind of abuse; but I don’t understand how some women handle what they call sexual abuse. I am a woman in America; I can speak and be heard. Having experienced a traumatic (their word) episode, why didn’t they immediately report it to someone, anyone. Have not we all, children as well as adults, been preached to about sexually taboo acts? I’ve seen all these grown, some elderly, women and now all these female athletes coming forward about inappropriate behavior from some man. They all look and act like normal, adjusted women. They claim mental abuse now, but they obviously didn’t think so when it happened or shortly after because they never did anything substantial about it. Did not these athletes tell their parents, and did not these parents protect their children? If you listen closely to these women, you hear over and over that they kept quiet because they felt advancing their position was far more important than objecting to what they now call abuse. Just today, Kate Upton stated “I questioned what I was doing” indicating she realized she had a choice. If it was so horrific and such an interference in your life, why did you live with it for 40, 20, 10 years before speaking out….long after that perpetrator was no longer of use to you? Some will respond that these women were too traumatized to act but that is exactly what I don’t understand. To me, such a grave traumatic situation would certainly require a reaction from me.
Claudette Catanese
Village of Mallory Square