Senior Fellows Christine Carter '94 and Nicky Schmidt '94 told their stories as secondhand witnesses to rape yesterday afternoon in Sanborn House in conjunction with Sexual Assault Awareness Week.
As part of the Senior Fellowship program, both speakers have spent the year researching their topics in lieu of taking classes. Carter has interviewed victims of date and acquaintance rape and is writing a book that will include their stories. The book will be called "The Other Side of Silence" and will be published later this year.
Schmidt has conducted interviews with battered women in the Connecticut area and is using these as the bases for a series of fictional stories.
Carter chose to focus on personal narratives from her interviews instead of using statistics to emphasize how much rape affects a college campus. Her voice gained increasing emotion as she read and she apologized in advance for not being able to remain composed while addressing the issue.
"Not only are our peers raped, but our peers rape," Carter said. She read an account given by a rapist - who is also a friend of hers - that chronicles his feelings about the experience and how he became aware that what he saw as a "game" was actually rape.
Schmidt also gave a deeply personal speech. She explained her own involvement at Dartmouth in an abusive relationship, which lasted more than two years, in an effort to bring the topic of battered women closer to students.
Schmidt said she had never spoken openly of her experience before, which added power to her statements. She shared with the audience a sense of her life during what she called one of its lowest points.
She described the name-calling, swearing, threats, and physical abuse she endured during the relationship, as well as the way her boyfriend isolated her from her friends and made her believe that she was the one with a problem.
Although Schmidt said she has no physical scars, she said she was left with "violent nightmares, a distrust of men, an extremely damaged self-esteem and an acute fear of imperfection," all of which still haunt her today.
She said victims of battering often suffer long after the relationship stops and are often diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. "It can take years ... a lifetime, to find the person you were before," she said.
When asked why she stayed in the relationship, Schmidt said her friends listened and gave her advice, but could not help her understand the unhealthiness of her relationship. She also said her counsellor at Dick Hall's House could not realize the real issues that lay beneath her depression.
Carter said she was surprised by yesterday's large audience, which filled the 50 seats in the Wren Room, as well space along the walls and doorway.
She said that she has felt "outcasted and unheard" while involved in her research. "I have come to assume that when I talk about rape, few people are willing to listen," she said.
She said she generally has been disappointed in the academic community, specifically those who pretend to be sensitive to the issue but will not change their behavior.
In an interview following the presentation, Carter said the Sexual Assault Awareness program at Dartmouth has improved over the past few years. She specifically cited the peer advisors as one of the new resources that can help students.
