Dear _____,

I believe it’s important to write to you about this. Important that this doesn’t go unacknowledged and therefore ignored. Important that I voice my outrage in the hope we take responsibility and accountability for the damage we shouldn’t be complicit to. All of that and more – I hope you can understand why it’s important to tell you this now, due to recent events that infuriatingly repeat themselves no matter how disgusted we claim to have been last time.

I don’t usually write these with a recipient in mind. Today, there is one. And I want it to be clear – this letter is for men.

In light of what’s been happening at Cornell – from the initial sexual assault in 2024 to the recent developments of the past month – we need to be angrier. That this kind of violence can be allowed to happen to someone and no one stepped in to stop it… that there was no one with any sense, compassion, empathy, or urgency to see what was happening and do something, ANYTHING, about it… we NEED to be angrier. There is no excuse.

We need to be angrier, because there are countless other cases we don’t hear about. What happened at Cornell isn’t an isolated incident – sexual assault doesn’t just happen on college campuses, it can happen anywhere and HAS happened anywhere. There isn’t just one Jane Doe, one victim – she can be any woman and she IS every woman. And we have been complicit in allowing the world to be like this. We have been complicit in creating a version of the world where women don’t feel safe and need to be on guard against the actions of men who don’t regard them as human beings. And that’s utterly unacceptable.

We need to be better, and that needs to happen now. In truth, us being better needed to have happened yesterday, the day before, the day before that – this needed to have happened since the very beginning. Because it’s not just about the violence and destructive behaviors we commit today, it goes back years, decades, centuries, millennia. It is a history of subjugation of women, of entitlement to their bodies, of disregard of the consequences of our actions, of disrespect to those we hurt. It is a history we need to acknowledge and condemn or else it will continue to exist and persist.

We need to be better. For the women who have suffered and lived in fear of the world we have helped foster due to our actions. We can’t just sit idly by because that’s what leads to this happening again. It’s what HAS led to this happening again and again and again. It is shocking and sickening that not more of us are speaking about it. We can’t afford that anymore.

We need to take responsibility and not stand for this version of the world. If any change is going to happen, we need to rightfully denounce this kind of behavior before it leads to the destruction of more lives. And because there are men who think that this kind of abuse is okay and excusable – because there are men who perpetrate this cycle of misogyny either through their actions or their inaction – we have to acknowledge that this is ALL of our problem. This is something that ALL MEN need to do something about, and there’s no denying that.

For those who may say “it’s not all of us” or even “I’d never do that” – that shouldn’t stop you from calling out those in the wrong and holding them accountable. Because until we stop this kind of behavior completely – cast it out and actually better ourselves and the world we share with others – it might as well be all men who are the problem. If we won’t raise our voices and call to action real change, we’ll just keep turning a blind eye and keep ignoring what shouldn’t be allowed to happen in the first place.

I cannot stress it enough, I cannot repeat it enough – we need to be better. All of us. You, me, every single one of us. Be better role models for each other, be better allies for women so we can better create a world where it’s safe to be a woman, be better at calling out and stopping misogynistic behavior before it ruins another life. And that means doing something about it, not staying silent or excusing ourselves from this. It really is all of our problem. And we’re overdue in actually doing something about it.

11-10-2026