blog.chiraag.me
Cornell and rape culture
A woman recently filed a civil suit against Cornell University and a fraternity (Chi Phi) regarding a gang rape incident which took place in 2024. At the time, the students were largely unpunished and the local DA refused to pursue the case.
It is the same old story all over again: Woman comes forward, police do an investigation (supposedly), case is not pursued because of “insufficient evidence”. It is hard to believe that the same story that plays out again and again and again somehow isn't tied to our societal fascination with misogyny and rape culture. And it _is_ a fascination: there is a whole contingent of men (and yeah, it's mostly men) who will argue that there is no such thing as rape culture until they are blue in the face.
We saw this with Christine Blasey Ford. We saw this with Dr. Anita Hill. We see this every day with people in our lives who are ashamed to even reveal that something happened, scared that they will be blamed: “What were you wearing?”, “Did you lead him on?”, etc etc. Bullshit questions which remove the responsibility from the perpetrator and put the victim under a microscope.
When someone reports a robbery, we assume that the crime is real and investigate accordingly. When someone reports arson, we assume it isn't just someone faking it for the insurance payout. Somehow, though, when a woman comes forward about a rape or sexual assault (if, indeed, she even feels comfortable coming forward at all), the default assumption is to _not_ believe her.
And then there are the men who will blather on about innocent people being caught in the crossfire: “Oh, we musn't overcorrect lest poor innocent men get accused.” While yes, due process should be preserved and all evidence _should_ be scrutinized, the bar for women seems to be impossibly high at the moment: At the moment of what is likely her greatest trauma, she should recollect exactly what happened and who did what, how she reacted, whether she explicitly said no, if she told anyone afterward, and so on. And god forbid if elements of her experience become fuzzy or if details change as she is forced to relive that trauma again and again.
We are _so_ far from believing women and investigating accordingly that we are not in any serious danger of _actually_ catching innocent men in the crossfire. Rather, we continually let perpetrators walk free to rape another day with nothing but a slap on the wrist.
Where is the justice? Where are the consequences for assholes who weaponize sex as a tool of oppression (indeed, rape is about power more than the actual sex)? Rather than a knee-jerk reaction of “But what about the innocent men?” every time someone says we should believe women, maybe just...believe women?
