Has widespread condemnation of the “Silent 50” prompted more men to speak out?
The Cornell 7 case—in which a former student alleges she was gang-raped by seven fraternity members in 2024—has generated a noticeable uptick in the number of men online who are speaking out about gender violence. I don’t (yet) have a formal study to prove this, or quantitative data to substantiate the claim. Hence, a caveat: My observations on this point are admittedly subjective and nonscientific.
But I’ve long paid close attention to what men say—and don’t say—in public about sexual assault and domestic violence. Especially the ways in which men have a critical role to play in challenging and changing the social norms in male peer cultures that allow these scourges to persist.
It’s clear something’s happening here.
Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a marked increase in Instagram and TikTok posts by a diverse group of men declaring their intention to break their complicit silence and speak out against misogynistic abuse. I’ve watched dozens of these videos.
To cite one notable example: Actor Dan Levy’s Instagram post criticizing Shane Gillis’ sexist monologue on Saturday Night Live has drawn widespread attention.
I know the algorithms that drive my feeds contain their own biases. Nonetheless, I’ve seen numerous men I’ve never heard of posting impassioned messages to their fellow men. The messages express outrage not only about instances of sexual violence, but also about the need for men to hold each other accountable.
It’s not right, these posters insist, that so many women and girls have experienced harassment, abuse and violence from men. Or that women in this society must be vigilant 24/7 about their personal safety—even when they’re in supposedly “safe” environments.
It’s unfair that they never know whether a guy they just met, or know only socially, is a “good guy” or someone who might do them harm.
It’s also unfair that if and when something “happens” to them, they get blamed for it because they didn’t do more to avoid it.
A cynic might argue, justifiably, that men should have known all of this decades ago. Women of every ethnic and racial identity, and a small number of men, have been writing, speaking and organizing around these issues for a very long time. None of this is remotely new.
… The normalization of misogynistic attitudes and beliefs among men sets the table for even more egregious events, like rape and gang rape.
Speaking for myself, I’ve been urging men to step into anti-sexist leadership since the 1980s. It’s literally the subject of my new book Every Man: Why Violence Against Women Is a Men’s Issue, and How You Can Make a Difference.
The Cornell 7 Case as a Breakthrough Moment?
But the Cornell 7 case—and the media spectacle surrounding it—appear to have created a rare moment of opportunity. More men seem to be listening, and actually hearing, women’s stories of misogynistic abuse. Some of them—perhaps more than ever—have chosen to actually do something in response.
Many women are not convinced. I’ve observed more anti-sexist advocacy from men online than I’ve ever seen before. But on social media, many women have been posting about the relative absence of male voices in this conversation.
Where are the men in my feeds? they ask. Why are the comments sections of my posts filled with messages from other women? Where are the statements of support or solidarity from men?
I get their frustration—and righteous indignation. I understand that many women are beyond disappointed with men. They’re enraged. Not just with abusive men, but with the “good men” they know and love, who can’t seem to find the time—or courage—to “break ranks with the patriarchy,” or risk opprobrium from other men if they stand in solidarity with women.
Especially at a time when women are under attack on multiple fronts: not only in terms of the high rates of sexual and domestic violence, but also in the rollback of women’s rights and the growing attacks and threats against women in public life and political office.
Not to mention the pervasive casual misogyny women are forced to endure. Take the recent controversy over Shane Gillis: In the midst of a national reckoning, inspired by the Cornell revelations, about the degradation of women in American culture, the powers that be at NBC decided it was a good idea to have the controversial comedian host SNL on Oct. 10.
The popular provocateur’s monologue, which received a decidedly mixed response from the studio audience, included bits about women in gyms dressing like “whores,” and how he was raised by “two big fat bitch sisters.”
We’ve got a long way to go. Although sexist jokes are not comparable to rape, it’s widely understood in the rape prevention field that the normalization of misogynistic attitudes and beliefs among men sets the table for even more egregious events, like rape and gang rape.
Gender-Neutral “Bystander Intervention” Training Is Not Enough
It’s important to remember that men who commit rape on college campuses may not believe they’ve committed a crime—or even violated a social norm.
Unless and until we address the reasons why they think their behavior is acceptable, we can talk all day long about the need for men to intervene when they see a sexual assault in progress. But that alone is not enough … unless and until we address the ways in which boys and young men are socialized, and what they’re taught—at home, in their peer culture, through the media they consume—about the meaning of concepts like “strength” and “brotherhood,” not to mention even more challenging concepts like entitlement—sexual and otherwise.
Effective gender violence prevention education also has to include space for fearless conversations with them about the social media ecosphere they inhabit, the manosphere content that populates their feeds, the misogynistic porn that turns them on and much more.
Without robust discussions about all of these forces at work in their individual psyches and group dynamics, education focused primarily on the definition of consent is woefully inadequate.
Likewise, “bystander intervention” training—especially when it’s gender-neutral, focused narrowly on intervening in an incident and delivered online—is more like a type of glorified nightclub bouncer training.
It’s a version of the “If you see something, say something” slogan the TSA employs in airports. It might occasionally be helpful, but on its own, it cannot address the deeper causes of campus rape, much less the ongoing global pandemic of gender-based violence.
(I say this as one of the early architects of the “bystander” approach in the gender-based violence field. The bystander training I and my colleagues developed, and still deliver, makes space for all of the “fearless conversations” referenced above, and more.)
Gender-Transformative Programming
What can make a dent in rates of gender-based violence is “gender-transformative” programming.
There is broad international agreement among people who work in gender-based violence prevention, that programming with boys and young men should go beyond awareness-raising and behavior-change messaging to address the gender norms, power relations and social structures that sustain violence.
… Men who commit rape on college campuses may not believe they’ve committed a crime—or even violated a social norm.
What this means, in practice, is giving young men the opportunity to talk with each other, as well as with their female peers, about what it means to be a man. (Gender-transformative models can be effective with women and nonbinary people as well.)
This means allowing them, in the protected environs of a training or workshop, to ask and answer the following sorts of questions: If you’re a guy, what does it mean to be one of the guys? Are you willing to compromise your values for the sake of fitting in? What is the price of being part of the brotherhood? Is other men’s approval more important than treating women with respect and dignity?
The Cornell case touched a nerve and became a global news story in part because messages concerning the alleged assault appeared in a group chat shared by more than 50 fraternity brothers. Yet the alleged assault continued for hours. Why didn’t someone intervene?
Anti-rape education with men needs to address the misogynistic beliefs they’re taught about women. But it must also explore the norms in male peer cultures—from boyhood to old age, and across differences of ethnicity, race, religion and socioeconomics—that shape the behaviors men engage in. Especially when they’re around other men.
These norms can sometimes contribute to men’s silent complicity in the face of misogynistic abuse. The Cornell 7 case raises urgent questions about how that complicity can play out.
What allegedly took place at Cornell—whether it’s ultimately judged to be a criminal act or not—was a preventable tragedy. One young man with the guts to say, “This is wrong!” might have stopped it from happening.
It’s a crying shame that didn’t happen. But a silver lining in this sorry tale is that a growing number of men seem to grasp that their silence has contributed to the problem.
What’s Next for Educators?
The solution in educational institutions is straightforward. First and foremost, college and high school administrators themselves need leadership training in this content area. Men as well as women. Same with teachers, coaches and other professional educators.
The next step, especially when it comes to male students, is for educators to mandate gender violence prevention education and training that encourages robust interactive dialogue about topics like masculinity, coerced conformity and leadership. Many programs already do this, such as MVP Strategies, or its partner organization, I Have the Right To. (Full disclosure: I run MVP Strategies.)
The problem is that beleaguered educational administrators with already strained budgets often choose to implement programs that might be cost-effective, but fall short of the kind of transformative educational experience so many parents say they want for their kids. Especially since many of those kids are exposed to harmful and misogynistic messages 24/7.
It is disgraceful that sexual violence prevention programs are facing funding cuts even as demand for their work grows. The widely used expression that “a budget is a moral document” suggests that what a society chooses to fund, and what it doesn’t, ultimately reflects its values.
What are the values of a society that spends hundreds of billions of dollars on advanced weaponry to counter supposed foreign threats, but fails to provide the means for our children—especially but not exclusively our female children—to be safe at school and on campus?
Cornell can play a redemptive role in our tumultuous national narrative if it forces us to confront larger questions like this and sparks difficult dialogues in families, communities and other public spaces.
Which brings us back to the question of what we can do to prevent future tragedies. Gender violence prevention educators have long maintained that educating young men on this topic requires more than simply providing them with good information about sexual consent and the law.
In the wake of the Chi Phi “Silent 50” controversy, which has brought renewed attention to the powerful pressures faced by young men in groups, educators and other adults in charge need to create space for honest conversations with them.
Those conversations need to include a fundamental reframe: the man or young man who challenges a misogynistic comment—or breaks up a potential gang rape—is not a “beta male,” a “simp” or a “cuck.”
Quite the contrary. He’s someone who has moral courage. He’s a person of character who’s willing to risk the immediate disapproval of his peers for something more valuable: the knowledge that he did the right thing.
We have a word for that: he’s a leader.
