Opinion: Boys Will Be Better
Image Courtesy of AP News.
By Mariam Baldwin
This is an independently submitted op-ed and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Tower.
A few weeks ago, a lawsuit against seven Cornell University alumni has been brought to the public’s attention. The defendants are seven fraternity brothers, accused of sexually assaulting a young woman in 2024, when they were all undergrads. The details of the crime are too horrific for me to reiterate, but the plaintiff – coined “Jane Doe” – was under the influence and unable to consent when these men took advantage of her.
In addition to the crime itself, I was most horrified by the reactions of those at the crime scene. The assault took place at a Chi Phi frat house and was advertised in a Snapchat group chat. There were at least fifty other people in the chat when these men made an open invitation to assault Jane Doe. Why didn’t anyone stop to help her? Why didn’t anyone call the police? The simple answer might be cowardice, or it could be the horrifying realization that too many men will protect other men in cases like this one.
Cornell University and the local police department did nothing to help Jane Doe in the aftermath of her assault. Only two of the men involved were expelled for their crime, and the rest were merely required to write essays about why what they’d done was wrong. Writing essays is a punishment befitting middle school detention, but in the case of rape? It’s essentially laughing in the victim’s face and belittling her trauma.
Personally, I’m sick and tired of being rendered defenseless by a society that prioritizes men’s impulses over women’s safety. Sexual assault is an unspeakable offense that has been watered down by clichés like ‘boys will be boys’ to make it seem more acceptable. How many times have I heard from another girl that she was assaulted at a bar, a party, or a nightclub? And how many times have I heard that it’s just something that comes with the territory, something to be expected, something to laugh about? The answer is far too many times. We need to face it: this incident doesn’t end within the stone walls of Cornell; it’s a nationwide epidemic. Our society is complicit in the events of what happened and has failed to protect many other young women before this one.
It’s time that we all start taking accountability for sexual assault and do everything in our collective power to prevent it. Long gone are the days when you can cling to innocence based on the ‘bystander effect ’; rather, the failure to prevent sexual assault incriminates you just as much as the perpetrators. Those fifty men in the group chat had a critical opportunity to end the horrific ordeal that Jane Doe went through, but instead decided to bide their time in silence and turn a blind eye to what was happening. Men need to start standing up to other men, and women need to look out for other women. The problem isn’t teaching your daughters to be safe – it’s teaching your sons to be upright people. We need to stop shrugging our shoulders and saying that ‘boys will be boys,’ but rather start dedicating ourselves to the idea that ‘boys will be better.’
