Cornell.

[poppymango]

Something has struck me about this repulsive and terrifying business at Cornell University (please google if you don't know what I'm talking about - be warned, it is very disturbing).

It's only three years since the Gisele Pelicot case hit the news. It was monstrous, and so shocking because of the number of seemingly ordinary, outwardly respectable men involved in both the direct crimes and the wider chat group. Women were shocked, terrified, and angry. Men were very keen to stress that these demons were outliers, not all men etc.

These Cornell lads would have been in their late teens at the time. As it was such an extreme case which made headlines around the world, I would be very surprised if it wasn't on their radar in some way (Ivy league bound as they were, I'm sure they had at least some knowledge of current events).

And yet, instead of reading the story with horror, thinking how exceptionally evil it is to do that to someone, they appear to have thought "...wait, I can do that?"

I wonder if they consciously looked into rape conviction stats and decided they could probably get away with it. I wonder if they said all the right things to their mothers, girlfriends, and teachers about consent and respect, while secretly fantasising about this. I wonder how old they were when they first watched hardcore porn, and whether this kind of fantasy featured in their viewing habits. I wonder if they'd always hoped they'd get the chance to do it, even if they were too scared to orchestrate the situation themselves.

How many boys and men fantasise about exactly this, but seem to all the world like fine upstanding gentlemen. How many of them do we know? How can anyone watch a new story like that of Gisele Pelicot, and the similar cases that have since come to light, and be anything other than revulsed? These men clearly weren't.

I'm just so concerned at how many very young men take part in this sort of behaviour as soon as they are able to. For every man that does it, there must be many more who haven't, but want to - and every one of these men is only pretending to be outraged at cases like Cornell and Gisele Pelicot. They learn the accepted response, but secretly they're entering these women's names into PornHub in hopes that someone will have recorded and uploaded it.

Sorry this is such a long post. It's just an observation that has really given me chills. There is no way they see women as fully human, never mind equal.

Men are so disappointing.

It's horrific, isn't it? "Not all men" and yet not one of the men on that whatsapp chat thought to intervene. In a way, I think the onlookers are worse here because these were men who were friends with the rapists and knew it was going on right then. They couldn't delude themselves it was just some nasty Internet fantasy being shared by perverts.

Well they did get away with it, didn't they?

Some of them had to suffer the indignity of writing an essay.

Misogyny knows no bounds.

Utterly horrific case. And equally horrific is Cornell's response. I am sure we haven't heard the end of this. Given the very senior people in the US who have been found to have raped and assaulted women and have apparently suffered no comeback, it doesn't surprise me.

Next time I see some man complaining that "false rape allegations ruin mens lives" I will remind them that a large number of very real rape allegations end with the rapists getting a very delicate slap on the wrist, because they'd rather ruin a woman's life than damage a man's career.

This bullshit is why we have people like Donald Trump in the White House. Like yes, actually, I would like to see the bright futures of violent rapists go up in flames. That seems like an excellent outcome for all of society.

Logically, the faculty of Cornell who decided that a couple of expulsions and a series of essays were an appropriate punishment for a crime like this (you'll be AMAZED to hear that they were all men) were either not terribly shocked by these crimes, or were so invested in protecting the university that they decided it was more important to try and sweep it under the rug.

Either way, I think we can infer that this permissive, misogynist attitude runs very, very deep in institutions like this. How many similar incidents have happened in the past and never made it to the news? How many lives ruined so that the universities could stay successful and the boys could go on to have glittering careers and happy lives?

Once again, men's feelings are being valued more than women's rights. We are not angry enough.

It is appalling that university’s, US and UK, are dreadful in responding to sexual assaults of young women on campus. The fact that anal tears are/were the most common reason for young American women to seek medical care on US campuses tells us about how young university men think about women.

Cornell University said that while it supported the case being brought before a grand jury, "any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false".

WTF were ‘consequential punishments’ that didn’t involve a custodial sentence? That these men were not subjected to a police investigation is appalling. But then women there and here are treated abysmally by men. Including on campuses, so the young woman being hesitant to pursue the case is completely understandable.

I understand that Warwick made many changes after this occurred, but still appalling that the first response was to ask Anna if she had slept with any of the men.

There is a lot of sharing of names and other pieces of info over on Instagram. Good that a couple of them have been fired in the last two days

@DrBlackbird "The fact that anal tears are/were the most common reason for young American women to seek medical care on US campuses tells us about how young university men think about women."

Excuse me WHAT?!

Is there a main thread on the Cornell 57? If so can someone please link it?

Wow, thank you - I had no idea about the situation at Warwick.

I don’t really understand how a University feels qualified to undertake its own investigation in the first place. Who would they task with that job? It’s not as if the allegation is an academic one.

This is very much a side point but I slightly challenge the idea that Giselle Pelicots case made news around the world and therefore they would have familiar with it. I can well imagine US news cycles would not have featured it as prominently as European ones and even if they did I can imagine a teenage boy having zero interest in reading about it.

I also don’t believe these boys would have pegged themselves as offenders if you’d asked them about the issue of consent in some ethics class. What you do in reality in a group of people ( especially when drunk ) with all the expectations of peer pressure / social acceptance / Fraternal loyalty is very different to what you think you’d do when asked that question in the cold light of day.

There’s probably a lot of re-writing of history with no doubt the backing of their families who won’t want to think they could be capable a commiting sex crimes. Of course they can’t … look at them… they’re clean cut, they’re clever… they love their grandmas.

In my opinion making teens, especially boys, watching the movie The Accused from 1988 should be mandatory.

I don’t understand how the university was able to expel students if there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prosecute.

Emily Clarkson does some good opinion pieces on this and similar cases, as she states, time and time again value is put on the male ‘potential’ over the actual life of the woman, as if she a) has no potential b) life has less worth. We see it time and time again, in this country too.

Such a good point

I love her, she always articulates what I'm thinking like she's inside my anger somehow.

They all feed each other

All it would have taken was One Good Man in the Cornel case.
I agree @poppymango, when you look at what happens to women in war time situations, most recently to the Palestinian and Israeli women brutalised by soldiers / fighters, we learn that men are opportunists. The only reason men don't generally rape is that the law tells them they are technically not allowed to.

When these things happen on US university campuses, Im always amazed how the university acts as a law unto itself. Cornell is a particularly horrible example, but this criminal behaviour doesn't seem uncommon and the university always seems to wave it away and then pretend it had nothing to do with them. At $50k in state tuition (and nearly $80k out of state) for Cornell, I cannot understand why US parents keep paying this money to put their daughters at risk.

One of the worst things I read is the woman dropped out understandably, and despite the fact there was enough evidence to expel 2 students the university would not refund her tuition which by all accounts was a huge stretch for her family (not the point either way of course). She had to go back to school to finish the semester and see her attackers on campus.

I've been following this on X and some of the comments are astounding. Men posting about how it was that poor girl's fault and she consented to group sex.
Other comments about how women are always falsely accusing men of rape.
Honestly, I am disgusted, but if this is the way some men think, it is no wonder that they behave like monsters.

I remember discussing with some male friends and colleagues a case where a number of men, including a footballer, had raped a woman in a hotel room. She was drunk and had voluntarily gone to the hotel with one of them. My friends/colleagues, who I had until that point considered to be decent and some of the 'good guys', all agreed that it was just impossible to know whether she had consented and even if she hadn't technically consented in that situation it's perfectly possible that the men didn't realise she hadn't consented. They had all been drinking and were with celebrities that were used to women wanting their attention so how were they to know that this wasn't exactly what she wanted? If she'd gone back to the room of a stranger it could only have been for sex and if she was happy to do that then if she wasn't physically fighting them off wasn't it possible that the other men truly thought she was happy to have sex with them too? Maybe they were all having fun then she regretted it in the morning, or thought she could make some money out of it.
They all agreed that the footballer should definitely not face any consequences from his club even if found guilty- the crime (if there was found to be one) should be dealt with by the courts and didn't prevent him from being a good sports person. The view was that there could be no way to be absolutely certain that she did not consent and that all the men knew that, so basically it could all have been a big mistake that could have happened to anyone. The consensus seemed to be that if there was a precedent for severe punishments in this case it would leave nice, normal men open to punishment for mistakes and no man would be safe.
I found this really chilling. These were professional, supposedly kind, nice, normal men, many with wives and daughters. And they were all basically agreeing openly that they could see a situation where someone like them would do the same thing.
These cases keep happening and I firmly believe a big factor is that too many men feel they can relate to the perpetrators, or that if they don't relate themselves they have friends who might act like that. So they want the men to be given the 'benefit of the doubt' when it comes to consent.

I saw some horrific comments on a FB post about it. She asked for it (obviously) she has ruined their reputation (obviously) .

50 men were in that chat not 1 of them said don't do it, Not all men eh!

I hope she takes them for everything they have.

My local police force, have an ongoing initiative for women and girls from sexual and domestic they post online regularly about it, the comments from men now do not shock me !

Me and DH watched a video of a comedian, Daniel Sloss, talking about sexual assault and rape. He said something along the lines of how to prevent this - it needs to involve men. If 10 men are there, 2 do something bad and the 8 say nothing, they may as well not be there. That you have to actively stand up and say no, that’s not ok or you’re just as bad as the rapist.

Led to an interesting discussion here and has come up since talking about this case. I think I agree that the other people in the chat are just as guilty - I can’t imagine knowing this was happening and just shrugging my shoulders, thinking that’s not for me but you guys carry on, then just going about my night.

It’s terrifying how many men don’t think of us as people, just an item to have/own/use/discard. Aside from jokes I don’t think these men have thought about Jane Doe for a minute after it happened.

It’s terrifying how many men don’t think of us as people, just an item to have/own/use/discard. Aside from jokes I don’t think these men have thought about Jane Doe for a minute after it happened.

Not one of them, it will be excuses and waffle about why they didn't/couldn't say anything, but not one of them care how she is affected.

As an aside I love Daniel Sloss my Dds have seen him live and he seems a good lad, he also has a lot to say about Russel Brand.