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Divides

In fact, while it's possible that before Hunter started speaking on her own behalf, I might have entertained the notion that she was a slightly dopey lady who fell hard for a bad man who was running for president and got caught in a very unfortunate saga, I now feel quite confident that in fact she is a borderline simpleton, fame-seeking narcissist whose self-interested grab for attention is likely doing further permanent damage to the Edwards family, including her daughter and her siblings. If her appearance on the Oprah show seemed like an unjust setup, then Hunter proved that, every once in a while, someone so amply meets all expectations for awfulness that it's impossible to muster anything other than loathing for them. (Rebecca Traister, Rielle Hunter's undeniable awfulness,” Salon, 29 April 2010)

Good girls get their consolation prize

RE: "I now feel quite confident that in fact she is a borderline simpleton, fame-seeking narcissist whose self-interested grab for attention [. . .]"

Is this the consolation prize -- ripping her, ripping people like her, apart -- for your being a "classic good girl," for there not being any way for you to "alter [your] fundamentally conscientious, perpetually guilt-ridden, grateful-for-a-job sense that [you] should always be working harder than [you] were, and that [you] [were] probably already being overcompensated for whatever [you] [were] doing?"

By punishing her, do you feel even more the good girl, feel good at last being the good girl -- the person you ostensibly regret being forced to become?

@Patrick McEvoy-Halston

Whoah, thank you for reading my work with such attention!

I don't think that my reaction to Hunter's televised revelations about her personal life have any connection to my assessment of my own professional habits. But I'm very flattered that you're such an avid reader.

Best,

Rebecca (Rebecca Traiser, response to post)


Divides

Rebecca,

If you felt the same pressure to be a good girl in your personal life as you admit you did/do in your professional, then it strikes me that what you are doing here would be working to make your compromised state less compromise and more advantage -- it would be working against efforts on your part to free yourself of deeply ingrained "good girl" inclinations -- and that anyone who is at all good, who cares about your future journeys, should point this out.

Since you only feel/felt this pressure in your professional life, then I can understand this particular attack on the "bad girl" not seeming related to your very previous post, where you railed against all that hems women into the good girl mold.

Link: Rielle Hunter's undeniable awfulness

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