A single group chat can expose a whole culture and it can wreck a life. We’re not here to debate every legal detail of the Cornell 7 story; we’re here to talk about the behaviour beneath it: the entitlement, the dehumanising jokes, the silence from bystanders, and the way “boys will be boys” turns into real harm. If you can read those messages and still shrug, we need to have a serious conversation about what we’re normalising.
I share why I believe this starts at home long before college. The standards we set, the language we tolerate, and the consequences we follow through on teach kids what they can get away with. I also push hard on the idea of “brotherhood” as cover. Real brotherhood is accountability. It’s the moment someone says, “This is wrong, stop,” even if it risks their social standing.
We also get practical about parenting in the digital age: digital diets, monitoring what’s being said, staying connected with schools, and refusing to confuse being a “cool parent” with being a responsible one. We zoom out to fraternity culture, hazing, consent education, and the broader pattern of victim blaming that shows up every day online.
If this brings up strong feelings, good then tell me where you agree or disagree.
Have you or someone you love been sexually assaulted or abused? You are not alone. Contact RAINN 24/7 to connect with a real, live person who’s trained to help. https://rainn.org/help-and-healing/hotline/ TextHOPE to 64673
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