When Genevieve Scott, Com鈥01, first arrived at 国产91尤物福利在线观看鈥檚, she passed a series of homemade signs as her parents鈥 car approached the Kingston campus.
鈥淔athers, thank you for dropping off your virgin daughters鈥 was a typical one. She recalls feeling awkward, but not offended.
鈥淚 was prepared to accept that this was what I was getting myself into,鈥 Ms. Scott says. 鈥淚 prided myself on the fact that I could take 鈥 and make 鈥 jokes like that.鈥
Looking back, she realizes incidents like this were the product of a confusing era.
鈥淲e believed that sexism was a thing of the past,鈥 she says. 鈥淲e thought that by participating in that humour, we were exercising our power. We didn鈥檛 understand what was really happening.鈥
When the gained momentum a few years ago, Ms. Scott reflected on how much the world had changed. 鈥淚 realize now, of course, that there was so much sexism and misogyny in the way we socialized,鈥 she says. She explores these themes 鈥 and the progress we鈥檝e made over the years 鈥 in her second novel, The Damages.
Ms. Scott set the first half of The Damages at Regis University, a fictionalized version of 国产91尤物福利在线观看鈥檚, in 1997-98. Anyone who was in Kingston at that time will undoubtedly remember the ice storm that left much of Eastern Canada and parts of northern New York and New England without power for a week and a half in January 1998. For Ms. Scott and her peers, it was an unforgettable adventure.
鈥淚 made a lot of friends during the ice storm,鈥 she says. 鈥淚t was exciting to be at the edge of a potentially dangerous situation and thrust together, living in the few dorms that had power, all sharing rooms.鈥
The book tells the story of Ros, an insecure young woman who arrives at Regis eager to make new friends and reinvent herself as a 鈥渃ool person.鈥 The ice storm unleashes a series of events that destroys her social status and forces her to drop out of school. In the second half of the book, Ros, now in her early 40s and quarantined during the pandemic, learns that her ex-partner (and former Regis friend) faces sexual assault charges stemming from their university days.
Although the circumstances are more extreme in the fictionalized version, Ms. Scott says the second half is an honest account of her own growth. 鈥淚t鈥檚 my reconciliation with that time, especially with the stories that were emerging from the #MeToo movement,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 wanted to understand every woman鈥檚 experience. In a lot of ways, this book is about Ros recognizing that another person鈥檚 trauma isn鈥檛 for her to judge, and that what someone went through, if it was painful, then it was painful. It鈥檚 my personal experience of wanting to be a better ally, because when I was in university, I don鈥檛 think it occurred to me that I should look out for women at all.鈥
The Damages is now available through .
