Why we can’t stop thinking about the Cornell seven

Content advi­so­ry: The fol­low­ing com­men­tary talks about sex­u­al assault and abuse and con­tains lan­guage some may find offen­sive. Please read with care.

On October 19, 2024, sev­en men in the Chi Phi fra­ter­ni­ty alleged­ly drugged and gang-raped a young woman at Cornell University. After giv­ing her ket­a­mine, they took turns sex­u­al­ly assault­ing her. They dis­cussed what they were doing as they were doing it in a group chat sent to over 50 oth­er young men in their fra­ter­ni­ty. Not a sin­gle per­son on that chat called the cops to report this, even as the crime was hap­pen­ing in real time.

On November 8, the alleged vic­tim (known as Jane Doe) report­ed the inci­dent to the Cornell University Police Department. After an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, the uni­ver­si­ty imposed sanc­tions that includ­ed expul­sions and sus­pen­sions. The Chi Phi chap­ter was closed and barred from cam­pus. The stu­dents who were sus­pend­ed rather than expelled? They had to write an essay reflect­ing on their behavior.

They drugged and gang raped a young woman and the account­abil­i­ty was a fuck­ing essay.

Because boys will be boys, I guess? Because she was drunk before they gave her ket­a­mine? Because she was dressed provoca­tive­ly? But we all know it’s most­ly that the men in charge gave the men who did it a pass. Because, if we ruin the promis­ing future of those boys over some­thing as incon­se­quen­tial as sex­u­al assault, how will they ever get appoint­ed to the Supreme Court? Or elect­ed president?

Women are tired of liv­ing in a cul­ture that teach­es girls how not to be raped before it teach­es boys how not to rape. We’re tired of liv­ing and pass­ing along “the rules” to our girls.

Don’t go any­where alone.
Cover your drink.
Don’t get drunk.
Don’t wear that.
Don’t go upstairs.
Carry your keys between your fin­gers.
Text me when you get home.

We fol­low these rules. And then, when some­thing hap­pens any­way, we are asked why we didn’t do more to pre­vent it. We spend a lot of ener­gy teach­ing women to pre­vent men’s vio­lence, but very lit­tle ener­gy in demand­ing that men stop com­mit­ting it.

The CDC esti­mates that near­ly half of American women have expe­ri­enced some form of unwant­ed sex­u­al touch dur­ing their life­times. More than one in five have expe­ri­enced rape or attempt­ed rape. Nearly one in three have expe­ri­enced ver­bal sex­u­al harassment.

And those num­bers are vast­ly under­es­ti­mat­ed because so much sex­u­al vio­lence goes unreported.

I myself didn’t iden­ti­fy as that half for a long time because my expe­ri­ence wasn’t bad enough to count. I talked myself out of being trau­ma­tized because my auto­mat­ic response was to fight and run instead of freeze. Thank good­ness my twelve year-old self kicked him and ran (and before you ask, my own bed­room, paja­mas, a friend of my brother’s).

You say you don’t know a sin­gle woman who has expe­ri­enced unwant­ed sex­u­al advances? Yes, you do. You’ve prob­a­bly marked your­self as feel­ing “unsafe” to those of us with sto­ries. We won’t share our sto­ries with those who ask us to give more evi­dence. We share our sto­ries with peo­ple who say, “I am so sor­ry that hap­pened to you,” not to peo­ple who ask us what we were wear­ing, why we were drink­ing, or why we didn’t scream or fight or go to the cops.

We are tired of being rea­son­able while oth­er peo­ple are allowed to be dan­ger­ous. Perhaps the col­lec­tive rage sur­round­ing the Cornell sev­en comes from the fact that so many of us remem­ber. We’re trig­gered because the sto­ry is trig­ger­ing. Our present selves have been thrown back into our own per­son­al trau­mas. Our ner­vous sys­tems are scream­ing in recog­ni­tion, acti­vat­ing mem­o­ries and sen­sa­tions of our own stories.

We are col­lec­tive­ly griev­ing for Jane Doe because she is us.

Due process, evi­dence, and false accu­sa­tions mat­ter, of course. The Cornell case itself demon­strates why these things mat­ter. But tak­ing women seri­ous­ly and insist­ing upon due process are not oppos­ing ideas.

We are not ask­ing for a world in which women are believed blind­ly. We’re ask­ing for a world where our bod­ies are not pub­lic prop­er­ty. A world in which girls are taught that they deserve safe­ty and boys are taught that oth­er people’s bound­aries are not obsta­cles to overcome.

Want to take action? Educate your­self and donate to Rainn.org, our nation’s largest anti-sex­u­al vio­lence orga­ni­za­tion and oper­a­tor of the National Sexual Assault Hotline. Women shouldn’t have to absorb life-alter­ing trau­ma so men’s lives don’t become inconvenient.

Have you or some­one you love been sex­u­al­ly assault­ed or abused? You are not alone. Contact RAINN ²⁴⁄₇ to con­nect with a real, live per­son who’s trained to help. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline can be accessed by phone (voice or text) and online chat ²⁴⁄₇. The site also includes sup­port resources, fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions, and more. [National Sexual Assault Hotline]