SeleneByMarialyn

Content warning: this piece discusses sexual violence.

I’ve struggled to write in light of the Cornell Seven (57), because anything else feels frivolous while the war on women continues. I was supposed to release my Halloween banners today but that feels ridiculously silly now. This isn’t my usual writing but I needed to write it anyway.

That is the paradox of life. Something can weigh so heavily, can hit so close to home, and yet we will ultimately continue about our lives. We’ll go to work. We’ll raise our families. We’ll make dinner, run errands, celebrate, and find joy where we can. We’ll continue living because we have to—because otherwise the weight of it would utterly crush us. But these stories never truly leave us. We tuck them away until next time, and there will always be a next time.

I cannot adequately express my level of disgust, exhaustion, and frustration that, in 2026, there is still a subset of people who refuse to acknowledge that sexual violence disproportionately affects women—and that much of that violence is perpetrated by men.

This is more than Cornell. This is about the systemic and cultural failures women have endured for centuries.

A woman can give testimony about the violence she endured and then find herself under scrutiny. 

What did she wear? 

How much did she drink?

Who has she slept with? 

As if her previous consensual sexual encounters are any indicator of her worth. Her life is picked apart to disparage her account and justify the abhorrent violence she was subjected to.

Acknowledging the violence women experience does not diminish the violence men experience, nor does it deny that women can also be perpetrators. Two things can exist, and they do. No survivor is more worthy of our shared  heartbreak or anger than another. But turning a blind eye to the patterns is unacceptable.

This is not a new phenomenon. Women have been naming it, documenting it, and surviving it for generations. It is devastatingly pervasive.

So saying “not all men” is honestly fucking stupid.

We know it’s not all men.

However, 1 in 3 women will experience gender-based violence. There have been enough women, for long enough, telling eerily similar stories, that women have altered the way they navigate their daily lives.

Can you imagine how exhausting it is to always be on alert?

Never leave a drink unattended. Have a buddy walk you to your car. Drop pin locations. Only run during daylight hours. Create safe words to bail you out of a date. Endless check-ins.

Then imagine the level of energy it takes to politely decline an advance rather than give an outright no. It has been ingrained in us that protecting a man’s feelings is safer than acknowledging our own discomfort and upholding our own boundaries.

And then, after all these calculations, all these accommodations we’ve made in the name of staying safe, some inevitable asshat enters the conversation to remind us that it isn’t all men.

We fucking know.

So, if you hear account after account from women and make a man’s reputation your primary concern, that is your privilege speaking. Don’t listen to women’s anger and respond by policing its expression. We’d rather you confront—and help us change—what created that anger in the first place. Otherwise, you’re missing the fucking point entirely.

So yes, we are tired. We’ve been explaining the same things ad nauseam. We are fucking done begging to be believed. Done being polite. Done being broken by systems that are meant to protect us.

Every time a rape kit sits untested. 

Every time an officer sneers during an interview. 

Every time a piece of paper is given to ward off an assailant. 

It sends a message loud and clear.

Police, investigators, judges who either don’t do their due diligence or hand down egregiously light sentences — who are more concerned with a man’s potential and the risk of ruining his life than with the devastating and lasting consequences of his actions have been reinforcing a silent message:

We cherish men above all else.

When society places more value in an athlete’s ability to play in the World Cup despite his numerous allegations of sexual violence, it screams FUCK YOU!

When a judge gives a young man found guilty of molesting a 4-year-old a pep talk of “just be polite and on time and you’ll be successful” — it screams FUCK YOU!

In any other context men would be furious if they were on the receiving end of this shit storm.

Maybe the system isn’t broken. Maybe it works as it was intended to. To keep women subjugated. Men in positions of power, staying in power, despite their actions. 

It’s exhausting.

So if you are a man and movements like “Me Too” or the upcoming “I Am Jane Doe” immediately make you feel attacked, I think that discomfort is worth examining. Not because being a man makes you inherently guilty or responsible for another man’s barbaric actions, but because the conversation was never asking you to carry that guilt.

It was asking you to listen.

It was asking you to acknowledge the collective lived experiences of women.

It was asking you to believe that women’s voices are worthy of being heard—not because you have a mother, a sister, a wife, or a daughter, but because women’s lives are inherently valuable.

A woman does not need to belong to a man for her humanity to matter.

And maybe, instead of immediately saying, “Not me,” “Not all men,” or “Why the bear?” ask yourself why so many women are saying:

“Me too.”

“I am Jane Doe.”

If  women can be brave enough to recount their harrowing experiences, the least we can do is listen and take it seriously. It is the bare minimum. It is not our job to find merit in her story or decide whether her pain has earned our compassion.

Frankly, I would rather a man stand fiercely in his misogyny and own it than pretend to be an ally while dismissing every experience a woman shares that makes him uncomfortable.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Welcome to the shitshow.

And if I hear another person try to place blame on mothers for not teaching their sons consent or their daughters self-defense, I am literally going to lose it.

While I do believe in nurturing and teaching our children, let’s stop acting like hundreds of millions of men didn’t receive proper home training. 

Most parents are already diligent in teaching consent while stressing the importance of safety to their daughters. 

At the end of the day, a person is responsible for their own actions.

I, for one, think it would be terrific if we started holding people accountable. All people. Regardless of status. 

Truly accountable.

Not these tepid slaps on the wrist.

This is a crazy idea, but if our justice system actually started caring about justice for victims, maybe we could begin addressing the conditions that have allowed this violence to persist.

So while this latest nightmare unravels, I will hold my children close and let my heart break for both their sakes. 

My son, may his heart stay true. 

My daughter, may she have the fire to fight. 

And may they both grow up in a world kinder than the one I’m writing about today.

Anything less scares me to the depths of my soul.

I am Jane Doe.