To the Editor:
In his recent column ("Fortnight in Review," May 9), N. Alex Tonelli raised the question, "Does anyone else feel that Dartmouth is a very safe environment for women compared to anywhere else in the world?"
But I would answer his question with a NO! I feel safer in my hometown of Las Vegas, where women are routinely objectified, stripped, hunted in "bambi hunts" and sold for sex, than I do being a woman at Dartmouth College.
The problem here is that most of the sexual assault happens to women before they have become aware of the resources available to them at this seemingly "safe" college. At least, this was my experience when I was raped in a frat freshman year. I did not report it because I didn't know my rights or the resources available to me.
So for me at least, I was less safe here because I had the expectation that it was safe, and if I had been properly informed, instead of hearing the lie propagated that Dartmouth is a much safer place to be a woman than other places, I probably wouldn't have been raped because I would have known to protect myself.
Dartmouth needs to give students more awareness, not less, and they really need to focus on freshman girls, when they have had the least opportunities to gain awareness. Cutting funding will not raise awareness, but propagating lies will cost the college and set back its efforts to bring about change.
