wickedwitch
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Chief says figure skating does not have culture of sexual abuse
U.S. Figure Skating executive director David Raith says sexual abuse is a "societal issue." Several of the sport's biggest stars disagree.
www.usatoday.com
Wagner: “Skating has a history of fostering and creating power imbalances that thrive in dark corners, and to believe that all of these cases are unrelated to the culture of figure skating is either grossly naïve or absolutely negligent.”
Raith: “We look at it as a societal issue,” he said. “It’s not just us. It’s every sport, it’s other facets of life. We’re doing everything we can to help educate, to help proactively ensure that our small membership in the big world is aware of things they should be looking out for and bad people and things to do right and things to keep everybody safe because it is a topic now that is on everybody’s mind and we accept that. You can never do enough. But we’re trying to do everything we can. For me, the No. 1 thing is that you support survivors and you believe in survivors.”
I genuinely believe that this attitude is some combination of naivety and stupidity as opposed to malice, but it's still not a good look at all. And just because it's a societal problem too, doesn't mean that the skating environment doesn't amplify aspects of it.