Glory ,'Potential'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
She said that 1 in 5 teenage girls has been abused in a relationship, according to JAMA which I found shocking
This strikes me as fuzzy statisticking. For one thing, "teenage" should by rights cover 13-19 inclusive, and of these, how many have dated, and of these, how many can be called in a "relationship"? What's a relationship, in this study?
Not that JAMA has free archives, or anything. Feh.
Top 11!
Maybe.
I like the darker stuff in the Crusie books. I know you're shocked.
(grabs comfy chair, drops off pile of old books, starts rifling through the bookshelves for good stuff).
I wonder what the definition of abuse is? I mean, I thought it was almost murder when Walter Ludwig broke up with me junior year and started seeng someone who was at the SAME BUS STOP AS ME, who I had to see every morning and afternoon. Also, she wore shorts over tights, which was hideous.
Luckily, that's as bad as it got for me, although I certainly knew some friends who were in more unhealthy relationships. Only one of all the girls I knew had a relationship which went into the realm of abuse...that I knew of.
Jesus Christ! Shorts over tights?
I agree, Kat. That seems really high. I hope it's incorrect.
It seems high to me. But there seems to be an undercurrent of "if I don't have a sweetie, I'm nobody" running through too much of teenhood. Which means that too often, people who have no real idea of how to handle a relationship get into the wrong relationship with the wrong sweetie (BTW, gender neutrality intentional) and stay for the wrong reasons.
E.g., Buffy, who treated it as a big revelation at the end of "I Was Made to Love You" when she realized that she didn't need to pursue Ben just to have a boyfriend.
So while 1 in 5 seems high, I wouldn't be surprised if teens are more likely to be in abusive relationships than older persons.
It was the '70s.
Yes, but she wore bright yellow tights. It was not a good look for any era.
Truth be told, she was a very nice person and showed my ex had very good taste in the chicks.
Thanks for the info, Betsy!
Nutty, the book that Tashijian wrote is called Faultline and it comes with an afterword in which she talks about Naomi Wolff's book, Promiscuities where Wolff talks about being physically abused by her boyfriend when she was in high school. Then she talks about the JAMA study. And she follows it up with
When I talked to professionals about these statistics, most thought they were low.
I'd love to see the study.
anyhow, I like how in the book, Tashijian writes an abusive character who isn't a stereotypical monster. He's a nice guy most or some of the time and then he's an abusive prick other times. It's a good story. But sad.