The scene to which I'm referring is the one where Doreen takes Esther to a party and Esther leaves her there. When first reading this, it honestly made me angry. I was very worried for Doreen. If you go somewhere with your friend that has a possibility of being unsafe, and she literally tells you to watch her back, you cannot leave her in a possibly dangerous situation no matter how uncomfortable you are, no matter what she has done or how irresponsible she has been. You're allowed to be angry, or upset, or whatever, but you can't just leave her vulnerable to something bad happening. You don't have to be an experienced party-goer to figure this out. Even though Esther is very naive, it only takes someone of a basic intelligence level to figure out that you can't leave your friend.
I think part of the reason I reacted so strongly to this was because of my own personal experiences, as well as the high level of education I've had about these types of situations. However after having finished the book and gotten more context for Esther's situation, reflecting back on the scene I have a little more sympathy for her. While I still don't agree with her lack of consideration for Doreen, I understand that depression, even beginning stages of it, doesn't leave you in a place to be super sympathetic to others, and you have no control over it. Also, people in the '50s were not educated about safety or situations with potential for sexual harassment or any other kind of danger. There wasn't a huge awareness of it, and in a male-dominated society there was a lot of victim blaming. Most people, including some women, had a very strong "boys will be boys" mindset. This, combined with Esther's additional naivete, provides a lot of reason for her not to realize how grave the situation could become for Doreen.
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