The Cornell 7 and raising boys in a world filled with casual cruelty The bar is higher now. We must teach our sons what real courage means in a culture that continues to demean women. At this point, tens of thousands of words have been spilled about the Cornell 7, the group of seven fraternity brothers at Cornell University accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a 20-year-old student over the course of seven hours in 2024.
There’s outrage at the legal system that failed Jane Doe; there’s disgust with the power structures that allow some families and some men to face limited consequences for their actions; there’s a rallying cry to ban frats on campuses. And then, there are all of the moms out there, at a loss for how to raise boys who don’t hurt women—and don’t stand by quietly when other people hurt women. Tomika Anderson wrote in Essence this week: “ I want to raise a son who understands that his responsibility to another human being doesn’t end with, I didn’t do it.” Because it defies reason, right?
How are we raising young men who, en masse, are comfortable referring to a drugged and incapacitated woman as sexually available in the crudest terms possible? Men who use phrases like, “shop still open?” to find out if they too can participate in her alleged gang rape? How is it possible that not one single student in the seemingly fraternity-wide group chat titled “Chi Phi Actives” alerted the authorities when _that_ text went out?
It’s actually not that surprising; in fact, it’s the probable outcome of the systems that we have collectively built. The small gains we might have made over the years, in accountability for sexual violence, some movement toward gender equity, and in bodily autonomy, are slipping away. And they’re being replaced by casual violence, sexism, and normalized cruelty—all rewarded by algorithms that value _reaction_ above all else.
That idea of normalizing cruelty is what guts me — as a woman, as a human, as a parent. Because it’s hard to imagine that those seven frat boys at Cornell came to their casual cruelty through a lack of choice and opportunity. They were at one of the best schools in the country—they had all the choices in the world and all of the opportunities ahead of them.
What’s alleged in Jane Doe’s lawsuit could only have taken place if the men she named had a casual disregard for her life, body, and autonomy. If they didn’t see her as equally human. If perhaps, they didn’t see her at all.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
