A case of sexual assault at Cornell University is making national headlines. A former Cornell student accused seven men of drugging and sexually assaulting her in the Chi Phi frat house on campus in 2024. Now, she is suing the university for mishandling the case.
The case has sparked protests at Cornell and outrage across the country. On social media, alongside expressions of indignation and sympathy, it is impossible to avoid the torrent of vitriolic, misogynistic attacks against the Jane Doe of this case in particular, and against women in general.
Among the most disgusting, enraging things circulating online are screenshots from a fraternity Snapchat group chat. One of the men sent a message to 57 other frat boys saying there was “free pussy in alum pu”—”alum” meaning the alumni room, and “pu” meaning pull up. One man wrote, “Like you can walk in and whip it out.” After someone posted a photo of Jane Doe, a participant in the chat asked, “Shop still open?” Another responded, “Yeah.”
Among the most disgusting, enraging things circulating online are screenshots from a fraternity Snapchat group chat. / Image: New York County Clerk’s Office
Training ground of the elite
Cornell University is an elite, Ivy League school that functions as a training ground for the ruling class. Ten of the current Fortune 500 CEOs graduated from Cornell. Darren Indyke, a Cornell Law School alumnus, was the longtime personal lawyer of Jeffrey Epstein—the world’s most well-known pedophile and sex trafficker—and co-executor of his estate. It is no surprise that a culture of misogyny and degradation of women runs rampant at a place like this.
“Frat culture” is not the root cause of violence against women on campuses; rather, it is a product of this sick system. Fraternities at elite universities function as networking clubs for the future ruling class and its lackeys and hangers-on. The Wikipedia page of notable Chi Phi members is a long list of CEOs, businessmen, politicians, chief justices, and generals.
One of the men accused of assaulting Jane Doe is reportedly the grandson of a former South Korean prime minister. Others graduated from elite private schools in Florida and Dubai. These men are raised with the expectation that they will rule the world and feel that they can act with impunity.
This should come as no surprise. The Epstein scandal opened the eyes of millions to the fact that there is an elite class ruling over the rest of us who feel that they can get away with anything—and they do, all the time. The Epstein files show how the entire US ruling class helped cover up Epstein’s crimes and stuck by him until the very end. 86% of Americans say that the Epstein files “show that powerful people in the US are rarely held accountable.” There is one set of rules for the rich and powerful and another set of rules for the rest of us.
Cornell University is an elite, Ivy League school that functions as a training ground for the ruling class / Image: sach1tb, Wikimedia Commons
The hypocrisy of the Democrats and the ruling class
Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, called the allegations “horrifying” and said they “deserve a thorough investigation that leaves no stone unturned.” Kathy Hochul, New York’s Democrat governor, said she was “deeply disturbed by Cornell University’s police and how they handled this” and asked “in what world would the police learn from the victim that she had literally been gang raped” and not persue those allegations.
In “what world” would the police learn about an alleged sexual assault and not investigate it? Perhaps the world where Jeffrey Epstein’s connections stretch across every single sphere of the ruling class—from academics like Noam Chomsky to top members of the Democratic Party, like Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, and Larry Summers, to billionaires like Bill Gates and Richard Branson—and none of these people have ever been seriously investigated.
Or perhaps in a world where out of every 100 cases of rape or attempted rape reported to police, there are 19 arrests, and only six lead to convictions. Or perhaps in a world where a woman reports a traumatic rape, and the cops tell her it “sounds consensual.” No wonder only 20–30% of rapes are ever reported.
Democrats like Schumer and Hochul are well aware that rapists sit in the halls of power, never facing consequences. They both know that sexual assault cases go without being properly investigated all of the time. But the public mood has turned against this, so they are cynically using this to look like they are doing something and maybe even boost their own political careers by pretending to care about victims of sexual assault.
Democrats like New York Governor Kathy Hochul are well aware that rapists sit in the halls of power, never facing consequences. / Image: Houses of the Oireachtas, Wikimedia Commons
Where does “rape culture” come from?
Sexual violence against women is a pervasive problem in capitalist society. Between 20% and 25% of undergraduate women experience sexual assault during their time at university. But it’s not a problem limited to universities. One in five women in the United States survive rape or attempted rape. Most women live in fear of this kind of violence. 77% of women under the age of 40 in the United States reported being followed by a man or group of men in the past year in a way that made them feel unsafe.
The situation for women in countries dominated by imperialism is even worse. For example, in Mexico, nearly half of women and girls over the age of 15 have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lives.
This all raises the questions: Where do these disgusting, degrading ideas and attitudes toward women come from? Why do they continue to pervade society, despite the legal advances that have been made for women, at least in some countries? These are extremely important questions that are rarely given a serious answer.
The oppression of women is a very old form of oppression. Thus, to explain its origins, we must delve back into history.
Though it is now hard to imagine a society without gender violence, the inequality of women is not inherent to the human race. For most of humanity’s history, people lived in tribes in relatively egalitarian societies. Marxists refer to this stage of human development as “primitive communism.” For biological reasons, there was a division of labor between men and women. Women generally worked closer to the home due to the need to rear children, while men hunted farther away. However, women were not seen as inferior to men due to their role in society.
Primitive communism was based on a low level of technological development. There was no consistent surplus which a privileged minority could benefit from, meaning that everyone had to work together in order to meet their basic needs. When this changed, so did the position of women in society. Eventually, with the development of agriculture and animal domestication, there began to be a surplus. This surplus initially came from the areas of work that men were responsible for, and over time, women began to be seen as inferior to men.
Additionally, with the development of private property, inheritance became a major question. Inheritance began to be tracked through the male—rather than the female—line. The only way to ensure that a woman’s children were her husband’s was to confine her to the home. Inequality, class differentiation, and the oppression of women emerged together and are inextricably linked.
This is the historical origin of the idea of men having ownership over women, and women being seen and treated as sex objects. With the development of class society over thousands of years, women’s oppression has become deeply ingrained in and complexly intertwined with class society.
Women’s oppression under capitalism
Across all forms of class society, ideology has been used to justify women’s oppression—from slave society in ancient Greece to feudalism. Capitalism, as the current iteration of class society, perpetuates the sexualization of women’s bodies and normalizes violence against women through the media, the pornography industry, and endless other avenues. The sexualization of women is extraordinarily profitable.
There is no shortage of examples of powerful men abusing women: Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly, Bill Cosby, P Diddy—just to give a few examples. The ruling class’s position above the rest of society, and the existence of an underclass of vulnerable, exploitable women shapes the ruling class’s psychology, and it enables them to get away with sickening abuse, as the Epstein cover-up shows.
Although women now make up 47% of the workforce in the US, they are driven toward lower-paying jobs. On average, women make 84% of what men earn. The pay gap increases the bosses’ profits, but working-class men don’t benefit from this. In fact, women entering the workplace has been used to drag down the wages and the standard of living of the entire working class. 77% of women with children under the age of 18 participate in the labor market, but they are still relied upon to do the domestic work necessary to raise the next generation of workers.
The dominant ideas in any society are the ideas of the ruling class. We are all raised and educated in this sick society. For this reason, many working-class men also hold sexist views. They are told that they will lose status, should women gain more independence in society. It is the capitalist class that stands to gain from these beliefs. They pit one group of workers against another on the basis of nationality, race, gender, and so on. Working-class men don’t stand to gain from anything that divides the working class, which makes up the majority of society.
Women’s treatment as second-class citizens is certainly not women’s “natural place,” nor is the desire to harm women something innate to men’s biology. It’s not the fault of “all men” in the abstract. Rather, it is the product of class society.
The Epstein files show there is one set of rules for the rich and powerful and another set of rules for the rest of us. / Image: Own work
What will it take to end violence against women?
The #MeToo movement that began in 2017 exposed numerous cases of sexual harassment and assault, particularly in Hollywood. The Epstein files merely revealed how commonplace these horrifying abuses are at the top of society. Capitalism has no solution for these problems. It offers tweaks to university policies, sensitivity training, and sometimes, when one case blows up in the media, there will be a symbolic prosecution of one individual.
Nor can the capitalist “justice” system be relied upon to protect women. When students attempt to report sexual assaults on campus, they are met with a confusing web of bureaucracy. Because of this daunting and difficult process, how many sexual assaults go unreported? Universities, both private and public, are run as corporations—and their main interest is in protecting their reputations and their donations from the wealthy.
While universities are a bureaucratic mess, the police are certainly not an improvement. There has been a systemic failure to investigate and prosecute rape cases. In 2022, at least 25,000 untested rape kits piled up in police stations, warehouse, and labs across the US. Less than 6% of reported rapes lead to arrests and less than 1% result in felony convictions.
Although we’re told that the purpose of the police is to protect ordinary people, their real purpose is to uphold the capitalist system—the very system that relies on exploitation and inequality, and produces the epidemic of violence against women. In fact, domestic violence is up to four times more common in families of police officers!
Although we are not opposed to education about consent and respect, this is a far more deeply rooted problem than can be solved by attempting to change the views of individuals or how individual children are raised. Ideas have a material basis in reality. There is a depraved ruling class that sits at the top of society, spewing their bile, and the media that perpetuates this ideology remains in their hands. We all grow up in this society, surrounded by these ideas, under conditions of inequality and exploitation.
But it’s also not just an ideological question. Only a world of material superabundance can lay the basis for genuine equality and end the humiliating dependence of one human upon another. Under socialism, domestic tasks, such as laundry, cooking, and cleaning, would be socialized, removing the unequal burden of domestic work from women’s shoulders. It is one thing for women to have the right to divorce and to leave an abusive partner. It is another to be guaranteed a job, healthcare, a home, and adequate support when leaving an abusive partner.
Our corrupt and depraved ruling class is not fit to rule. We need to get rid of the capitalist class and all of the institutions that uphold their system. The only way that can be done is by putting the working class at the head of society. It is through the process of united class struggle between working-class men and women that prejudices, including sexism, will break down—all history of strikes, mass movements, and revolutions proves this. And with the working class in power, running society democratically in the interests of the majority, we can take aim at the material basis for the oppression of women: class society itself.
On the basis of the complete transformation of society, the relationships between men and women will in turn be transformed. It is the alienation, poverty, and misery of capitalism that distorts the relationship between men and women. Removing this will lay the basis for truly human social relations.
To end sexual violence and the oppression of women, we need to tear this system down. On the basis of socialism, relationships could be based on equality, love, and mutual respect.