A story about a gang rape that took place at a fraternity house at Cornell University has sparked a conversation online about men who are bystanders to crimes against women – but this crime says so much about fraternity culture.
Like so many other people around the world, I was horrified to learn of a gang rape that took place in 2024 at a fraternity at Cornell University. The story broke after the victim of the rape, known only as Jane Doe, sued the University for how they handled the situation. The men, now branded as the Cornell 7; two of which were expelled while the remaining five were only made to write an essay as their reprimand for literally drugging and raping a woman. This also did not extend to the fifty men in a group chat who were informed of the gang rape and chose to do nothing about it. Fifty seven men in total were either actively raping an intoxicated woman or were more than happy to see it being done and carry on with their day as if nothing happened. That is abhorrent and deeply disturbing.
The most frustrating thing about this story is that, when I heard it, I barely even flinched. That is not because I don’t see the abject horror in what happened, but because this is a story that we have heard so many times before. Men can rape women, doing so brazenly and without any fear. We live in a world that tells them that this is okay. The example set out before men in our world shows them that violating a woman’s bodily autonomy is not the life ending crime that it should be. We all remember the three month prison sentence that Brock Turner served after he raped an unconscious woman. We have seen men with public sexual assault allegations rise to offices like the United States Supreme Court and the presidency – there are no repercussions that seem to stick. That’s before you actually consider that the Cornell 7 did something truly horrific and had to write essays that were probably not even read. Where does that leave the women who survive these injustices?
Rape happens everywhere in the world; not a single corner of our planet is safe from it. We have seen stories about animals being raped, corpses being violated, women, children, and men of every background and age. Rape is a global problem. This specific case, however, highlights a glaring cultural threat that persists in the United States almost singularly. The deeply unsafe culture of campus fraternities.
What is a fraternity?
For my fellow Brits, you likely have a half baked conception of what fraternities and sororities, collectively known as Greek life, are like from consuming American media. For those of you not in the know, they are large membership organisations that have chapters across different universities. Typically, they exist on gendered lines and are used as a place to build connections with other students; often they form part of family traditions, and multiple generations will join them. They are also known to be inherently exclusionary spaces, historically being heavily racialised to the extent that specifically Black fraternities and sororities have sprung up across many campuses.
The typical fraternity, like Chi Phi where the gang rape took place, occupies large mansions on campus. When I visited the US in 2024, I actually saw some of these buildings first hand; needless to say, they are a long way from the student halls that I spent my fresher year in. These organisations typically also carry membership fees and have specific rules that their members should follow. From what I have observed, these organisations brand themselves as places to further develop your university experience and make friends. They are also often utilised as a way to build future professional networks, which, given this is a quirk of America, the most work-brain-rotted country on earth, is hardly a shock.
What is most apparent to me, though, is that the Greek system is inherently exclusionary. Even in universities where the issues of diversity have been addressed, the system is built to reinforce a social hierarchy. Sororities and fraternities impose specific social rules and expectations on their members, also projecting a culture of superiority that is frankly quite insane coming from a British perspective. The conversation about both sororities and fraternities is something that is inherently relevant to how something like what happened at Cornell is possible. Fraternities are, without a shadow of a doubt, factories for breeding some of the most dangerous and loud misogyny within America’s already deeply sexist culture.
In addition to the fact that you can get rejected from the fraternity parties, both sororities and fraternities have admissions processes. This practice, known as ‘rushing’, is when university freshmen can pledge to join a fraternity or sorority. Each has its own entry criteria and can be extremely selective about who they admit, often making decisions based on appearance and personality. Of this, my friend said, “every year there are people who don’t get picked to be in any frat or sorority, and I imagine how shitty that must feel.” If you are allowed to pledge for a frat or sorority, you then have to undergo secretive initiation rituals, often a form of hazing that expects you to demonstrate your loyalty to the house you wish to join. There have been numerous stories about how these rituals are inherently dangerous and often involve sexual or physical abuse of pledges. This has gone so far as to result in pledges dying, as shown in a recent case from Northern Arizona University where a frat leader has been sentenced following a death under his watch.
The breeding grounds of misogyny
One of my closest friends is American, and while she did not join a sorority herself, she has had enough direct exposure to the Greek system as to share with me her thoughts on the dangers it poses. She explained to me how sororities tend to have very strict rules about their members drinking alcohol under the sorority roof and are often not even allowed to be seen on social media with an alcoholic drink in hand. This rule does not apply to fraternities, who are often known on campuses for throwing large parties where alcohol is served. These parties are often the most convenient, or even the only, place that sorority girls can drink alcohol. These parties are entirely dictated by the fraternity members and the general culture at them, as my friend described, are “chaotic, loud, and very belligerent.” When I asked her to expand on the term ‘belligerent’, she explained that these parties are entirely run by frat brothers and, as a result, are often a site of fights, kicking people out for minor or non-existent reasons, and overarchingly enforce a culture of compliance.
She went on to describe the culture at frat parties as inherently unsafe for women. The large maze-like mansions make it very easy to get separated from friends, isolating women who attend and thus making it a lot easier for men with poor intentions to corner them. Frat parties also have an inherent expectation that you have to keep the party hosts happy so as to not be removed from the party itself. This is particularly notable for women under the legal drinking age who have limited options to explore social drinking outside of these events. My friend explained to me that if a man flirts with you, there is an expectation to be reciprocal so as not to offend, reinforcing the wider cultural narrative that women are expected to cater to the whims and desires of entitled men.
Further to this, the way that these parties are managed is inherently misogynistic. My friend discussed with me how there is a culture amongst the fraternities that there is status attached to having “the hottest girls” attend their party. To maintain this, they have strict entry policies and will reject women whom they do not consider attractive enough to enter. What this does is build a culture of expectation once more: before you even get into these labyrinths of male placation, you are essentially demanded to present yourself as desirable according to the male gaze; otherwise you are not welcome. We also have to understand that these fraternities capitalise on being located in a context where there are very few other options for people who want to socialise and drink but cannot due to the high legal drinking age and also the sparse options present in many university towns. Combine this with the fact that sororities do not typically allow for alcohol under their roof, and you have a toxic combination that forces women into predatory spaces.
Fraternities and rape culture
I remember, with my same American friend while we were students, watching a documentary called The Hunting Ground. This documentary covers the very real issue of rape on American university campuses, delving into the factors that make university one of the most dangerous times in a woman’s life. The documentary was released 11 years ago, and clearly, nothing has changed since. One thing that really stayed with me was a clip from the documentary where a fraternity was filmed chanting “no means yes, yes means anal.” I think that is an extremely on the nose tell of what kind of culture is being reinforced behind the doors of fraternities. These are institutions that are built on a foundation of toxic masculinity, and as we have already seen, the belief that women inherently owe their members attention and compliance.
The Cornell 7 case is notable because of the brazen way the rapists shared what they were doing with their frat brothers. In leaked messages from a Snapchat group is has been seen that while they were raping Jane Doe, they wrote “free pussy upstairs”, inviting others to partake in the assault. We cannot understate how utterly dehumanising that is. In testimony from Doe, she was pressured to take ketamine by frat brothers. She alleges that she had never taken the drug, an anaesthetic, before, and thus was unconscious for much of the assault. When speaking to my American friend about this aspect of the case, she told me that there is an expectation that if a frat brother offers you a substance, you take it or risk social exclusion and ridicule. While I cannot speak for Jane Doe, this likely was what happened and unfortunately likely had the inherent intent to render her unable to reject sexual advances from fraternity members.
The group aspect of this case is inherent. As a collective, Chi Phi fraternity was a space where it was normalised enough to disregard the consent of women that a group of seven men were comfortable not only collectively doing that, but broadcasting it to a group of a further 50 men. It is one thing to rape someone, but then also invite your entire building of men to do the same, with no regard for the fact that this level of physical and emotional trauma could have very easily killed Jane Doe, is alarming. I cannot say what was going through the heads of the Cornell 7, but to speculate, I suspect a big part of their motivations came from a warped sense of brotherhood. Fraternities are, after all, branded as such. I imagine that the Cornell 7 wanted social capital from providing their frat brothers with access to an unconscious woman – allowing other men to treat her like an object to be used instead of a person.
Let’s talk about the culture around group sex and normalising gang rape
We are in a time when it is becoming increasingly normalised for men to consume content from people like Bonnie Blue that spread the idea that women both want to be the centre of group sex and that their bodies have no physical damage from such acts. Blue is perhaps the face of this phenomenon more than anyone else due to the sheer extremity of what she depicts in her content, but there are entire porn studios and independent creators who have turned the ‘gangbang’ into their brand. This is while there are people like Blue who will portray these acts and confidently say that they are normal and safe for women. Combine this with an online culture that widens the gap between men and women, and there are gangs of men like the Cornell 7 who feel not only a desire to do this to women, but an expectation that they should be able to do so regardless of the consent of the woman in question. Much like how 50 men read a message stating “free pussy upstairs” and did nothing, there are literally millions of men around the world watching content like that of Bonnie Blue or Lily Phillips. These are men who perhaps would not want to line up to partake in this content but are more than happy to consume it.
Gang rape is something that is almost always premeditated, according to Merril Smith, author of the Encyclopaedia of Rape. It is an act used to dehumanise and to punish the victim inherently, and it is absolutely a manifestation of acute and extreme misogyny. I am reminded of other cases like the 2012 Delhi Bus gang rape, where the victim, Jyoti Singh, was raped as punishment for being out at night with a male colleague. Another case that came to mind was the ABSU gang rape that took place in a classroom in Nigeria and was later shared online. The common thread in these cases is punishment – the rapists expressed internalised anger toward their victims and sought to ‘correct’ a perceived infraction of how women are supposed to exist in public. This is perhaps most true when you consider that gang rape is most common in war zones, particularly in conflicts fought along ethnic or religious divides. We cannot divorce what happened at Cornell from these understandings. While the rapists themselves likely did not have the immediate thought that this was an act of punishment, they are products of a culture that inherently hates women and allows for this hate to fester until something like this happens.
Additionally, there is likely a warped sense of community building that factored into what happened at Cornell. The vast majority of gang rape cases take place between men who know each other and have at least one shared identity; in this case, it was a shared identity as members of Chi Phi. Given their broadcasting of their acts, we know that they wanted to include fellow fraternity brothers in this crime. How deeply disturbing it is that such a violent and dehumanising act will have been conceptualised as a bonding exercise for these men. I cannot help but think of the way the men who raped Gisèle Pelicot also bonded over their shared activities, disregarding her right to consent. I must ask, why is it that men bond over the dehumanisation of women?
Bystanders and the idea of ‘not all men’
Much of the focus of my article has been on the Cornell 7 themselves, but we cannot overlook the fact that 50 other men were privy to the fact that this was happening. 50 men who will go through the world with zero repercussions for being bystanders to gang rape. These men, frankly, the Cornell 7 included, will be able to move through life and become the future lawmakers and medical practitioners and corporate senior leaders of the world. These are men who will graduate from a prestigious university and carry no consequences with them for standing back while their friends raped an unconscious woman. That is fucking appalling.
Far too often, feminist discourse about rape and sexual assault is responded to with the old chestnut of “but it’s not all men.” I have to direct anyone who utters that most infuriating of phrases to what happened at Cornell. We can speculate as to why the other men in the groupchat didn’t speak up, but I imagine it is because their reputation as one of the bros amongst their fraternity was worth more to them than advocating for an unconscious woman being violated by several men. This is at the heart of where the sting is with cases like this. Men so often want to claim that it is a few bad apples who take things too far and cross the line, but there are so many men who will watch that happen and do nothing to stop it. For these men, there are no consequences despite being complicit in what happened to Jane Doe. Complicity is, in my opinion, a crime too.
I remember one time when I was younger, at a club with a group of friends; amongst our number were men and women. When a man came up to me and put his hand up my skirt, several of the men around, men who I considered friends, saw and did nothing. They didn’t inform security; they didn’t ask until days later if I was even okay. The women in our group immediately sprang to action, attending to me and blocking me from the assaulting man – it was not lost on me that this was despite the fact that doing so put themselves at direct risk of the same happening to them. For all of my observations about men and bystander culture, I cannot ever understand how someone can be aware of a rape happening under their own roof and live with the fact that they did nothing to stop it. In a culture of toxic masculinity where men pride themselves on being protectors and valiant, I have to ask: where the fuck was that energy when you actually had a real reason to step up and protect someone?
A slap on the wrist
Once again, just as with the countless other stories like this one that have come out of American university campuses, or the Olympic Games, or the World Cup, or the Supreme Court, or literally any other respected institution, there are no real consequences. I am so tired of advocating for justice for rape survivors and knowing that there is rarely, if ever, any justice. I didn’t get it when it happened to me, and Jane Doe is now having to go through a legal process of suing the university to try to get it for herself. The onus should not be on the survivor to advocate for a measured and considered approach to literal rape to be achieved.
This is a story that will repeat itself, over and over again. At the same time, patriarchy continues to foster a culture where men are not only empowered to rape, but, by lack of repercussions, encouraged to rape. I really don’t want to sound like the voice of doom, but surely in a system where gang rapists are asked to write a meaningless essay as punishment, this is an inevitability. Women deserve better. Women deserve to navigate their university career without fear that they will be the one in five who will be sexually assaulted before they graduate. Women deserve to know that if they are raped, especially if they are drugged and gang raped by frat bros who broadcast their heinous acts to 50 other men, that they will get actual and meaningful justice. We know that a slap on the wrist means nothing. We know that yes, while it is in fact not all men who will answer the call when a woman’s unconscious body is offered to them, it is seemingly nearly every single man who will do nothing to stop rape when they are confronted with it.
