Alice Sebold: Event Review

When Alice Sebold began her speech, I felt as if I was meeting a celebrity. I have both read her book the Lovely Bones and I have seen the movie adaptation. Alice Sebold's speech was about her personal brutal experience with rape on a college campus during her freshman year. During this discussion, I was really surprised to hear some of the questions asked by the audience. Quite frankly, a couple of the questions seemed very inconsiderate. 


Alice Sebold’s speech was both touching and haunting. Sebold was very particular during her speech when talking about rape language and how she does not like to be called either a survivor or victim or rape. I think this distinction is very important because it is important to be conscientious of our language. Before Sebold's speech I had never thought of rape language before and how different words used to describe a persons experience with rape can be offensive. I am now more conscientious of the language I use and how it could make someone who has experienced rape feel. During Sebold's speech, she brings up a major issue concerning rape on college campus’s and the lack of help provided to those who are victims. Sebold remarks that the campus community does not know how to handle rape and that you should go immediately to the police. I think that it is first important to understand that college campus's handled rape a lot differently when Sebold was in college. I'd like to think that college campus's have improved in their methods since then and would be the better solutions rather than going to the police. This being said, college campus's still has a long way to go in learning about the ways to prevent these incidents from even happening in the first place. 

I found Sebold’s speech to be a lot more powerful and impactful than watching videos on a screen about sexual assault and rape. There is something about watching sexual harassment videos on a screen that makes it unrealistic because we are able to dissociate and separate ourselves from what is happening in the screen. As someone who has friends who have experienced rape and sexual harassment, I am much more aware that this is not something that can just happen on a screen, but actually happens in real life all the time. It is our duty as a society and especially as human beings to stop these acts of violence whenever the opportunity is presented. 

- Jane Brooks

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