Content Warning: This article discusses sexual assault, rape, institutional shielding of abusers, and misogyny. Reader discretion is advised.

With the recent horrific news regarding the “Cornell Seven” exposing group chat evidence, institutional shielding and the reality that every woman walking the planet carries a blueprint of survival against potential assault, I ask this: How do we hold men accountable and what can be done? I begrudgingly use the Cornell Seven title given to this vile group of men so you understand the news I’m referencing but this name shields the perpetrators. Their names are as follows: Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar.

This story, and countless others have exposed a sickness in our culture that cannot be ignored. I’ve noticed it for years, with coverage on the manosphere and recent articles using shock to expose it. Again, it dies down until the next horrific incident is plastered on screens and fades away. Over and over this cycle repeats, women cannot heal and process with emoji hearts in a comments section. All my life I’ve been surrounded by women, (having many sisters) and in recent years my landscape has been painted by how language has changed due to app guidelines. Self-censorship has worked it’s way into everyday interactions. This diminishes the harsh experience faced by people daily. Call things what they are. Direct terminology and words we deem shocking are needed for that very reason. Do not call a genocide a conflict. Do not use the umbrella term of SA when talking about rape. Don’t baby your mind and soften the blow by calling it grape either. This isn’t a fucking fruit stall. Be specific. If you censor words they cannot hold their rightful weight. We need to truthfully talk about these things, and that becomes more difficult when you skirt around the edges.

“Nice guy” platitudes and defensive declarations of “not all men” do nothing to fix this issue. Before any men want to complain that we have issues that are unspoken regarding mental health (as important as that may be), right now my focus is what we can do to hold ourselves accountable regarding women. There is no need to delve into a tangent about our own experiences and derail the conversation at hand. Those previously mentioned defensive reflexes actively obstruct justice by centering a man’s ego precisely when the focus should remain entirely on the victim and the systemic issue enabled by the perpetrators. Holding ourselves accountable and breaking self-censorship require moving past passive empathy into active disruption. This for many will be uncomfortable. So be it.

Accountability cannot be reactive punishment. It has to be a daily dismantling of behaviours. Misogyny, entitlement, and boundary-pushing almost always start in male-dominated spaces long before they escalate to physical assault. For example, in group chats, casual conversations, and jokes that treat women as objects or targets. When men use "nice guy" rhetoric or laugh off degradation, other men must step in. Silence is read as compliance. Accountability means saying, "That’s not a joke, and it’s not okay," even when women aren't in the room. Real loyalty means refusing to cover for, minimise or make excuses for abusive behaviour. Social networks, not just those occupying online spaces but clubs and teams often rally around perpetrators to protect the "reputation" of the institution or the brotherhood. Again, do not be afraid of breaking the silence. Ask yourself, if people ridicule me for speaking out is this really a group that I want to partake in? What if you had something occur to you regardless of gender role, would this community offer you support and protection?

Next we have to understand that accountability goes beyond legal thresholds. The criminal justice system notoriously fails sexual assault survivors (as seen in how often cases struggle to meet high evidentiality bars or rely on administrative wrist-slaps like essays). Every woman in my life has a story to tell, virtually none of them have pursued them further due to time-based evidence (bruises have faded, stains on clothing or hair cleaned afterwards), shame surrounding the event and men threatening to make matters worse or escalate the level of violence and abuse if they come forward. The reason so many women do not report is that they know the system is stacked against them. Giving statements means reliving that event repeatedly and with how long these cases can last even with the potential drop, they have to wake up and recount it daily. Listen to the women in your life, and I mean truly listen, not just nodding your head or blocking it out when the reality becomes intense.

Refuse to allow accused or proven abusers to cycle quietly back into society, networks of positions of power without consequences. We cannot control every institutional failure but we can control the environment that we occupy. Assailants rely on secrecy and the passage of time so they can resume their “normal lives”. The cycle repeats: leave, get hired, join new social circles. Their actions should follow them into their workplaces, their networks, and their communities. We have to stop letting cycles of outrage die down quietly. Keep talking about it. Keep checking what consequences actually materialised months down the line. When other men try to change the subject or act like a case is "old news," refuse to let it drop. When names are public, they should stay public. If we want a world where women are no longer taught to expect violation as an inevitability, men must stop offering safe passages back to normalcy for the abusers who cause it. Men may throw around the classic insult of snitch or social justice warrior (SJW), these childish remarks are a ploy to enforce a code of silence, triggering a fear of being ostracised or looking “uncool”. Usually those who resort to this are ones with a deep investment in protecting a system that benefits their ego, or at worst have something to hide. It minimises real harm. Do not let these men retreat into internet buzzwords. Force them to hear themselves. You’re not being a snitch, you’re talking about violence against women. Tell them to grow up. If holding men to a basic standard of human decency threatens them, maybe they need to examine why. Be considerate about the timing and who is around to hear these conversations. Women do not need a re-hash on their trauma or to carry the emotional weight of men’s interactions. However, if it’s other men protecting their own comfort at the expense of women’s safety, you don’t owe them shit.