Jane Doe Reminds Us That America Is One Big Fraternity

America has a rape culture problem.

It's estimated that 1 in 5 women in the U.S. will experience a completed or attempted rape in their lifetime. If you're a woman, this statistic likely doesn't surprise you. And you've probably already had the thought... I bet it's more. 

That's because we know that sexual violence is dramatically underreported. We know about the shame, stigma, fear, and uncertainty that can accompany reporting something like this. And we know that survivors are often asked to defend their own behavior before anyone asks the person who harmed them to defend theirs.

That's what rape culture looks like.

We see this culture represented at the highest levels of our leadership in our country. Donald Trump has been accused by at least 24 women of sexual misconduct since the 1980s, one of whom was his ex-wife. He was caught on a hot mic admitting that he often grabbed women by the "pussy." Multiple beauty queens told us he used to come watch them naked behind the stage, some of them while teenagers, in a beauty pageant he owned. People argued this was just "normal locker talk" as though the behavior we tolerate in our leaders has nothing to do with the behavior we normalize in the culture.

And then he was elected president. 

The significance isn't simply that a powerful man was accused of sexual misconduct. It is what happened to those accusations. They became political arguments, questions about women's credibility, debates about whether the behavior was “really that bad,” and eventually something millions of Americans were willing to vote around.

That message matters.

That message was consumed by countless men and boys in our country. The danger wasn't that the message was something new; the danger this moment revealed was that there was no need to hide it anymore. 

In 2024, Trump was found liable for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll. We had even more evidence of Trump's history of sexual violence. 

And then he was elected president... again.

And when The New York Times' recent review of the released Epstein Files identified more than 5,300 files containing over 38,000 references to Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Mar-a-Lago, and related terms, the silence was palpable. 

As a reminder, to date, no one from the released Epstein files has been criminally charged or prosecuted.

The law is not always in favor of survivors of sexual violence.

People often make the counterargument that Trump wasn't found liable for rape as a way to dismiss his behavior. However, the reason Trump was found liable for "sexual abuse" instead of "rape" during the trial is that the State of New York had such a narrow definition of rape at the time that it did not include penetration of anything other than a penis. Judge Lewis Kaplan later explained that the jury's finding was consistent with rape in the ordinary meaning of the word, even though it did not satisfy New York's narrower legal definition at the time.

That distinction between what the law calls something and what ordinary people understand it to mean is important. Because sometimes the law itself is part of the problem. New York updated its legal definition of rape when Governor Kathy Hochul signed the "Rape is Rape" Act into law on January 30, 2024.

These kinds of definitions matter tremendously to how justice can actually be granted to survivors.

Much like how the NY definition of consent as it relates to the involvement of alcohol and other drugs has been a factor in the Jane Doe Civil lawsuit ⁠alleging that several members of a Cornell fraternity drugged and raped her in 2024. Under New York's consent law, lack of consent can only be established through 1) forcible compulsion; or 2) the victim's incapability to consent; or 3) the victim's lack of expressly given consent; or 4) the victim's clear communication that they did not consent.

Jane Doe's lawsuit alleges that she was incapable of consent because of her level of intoxication from drugs and alcohol. However, the NY definition of mental incapacitation only applies to someone who was given substances without their consent, effectively determining that anyone who willingly chooses to partake in substances waives their right to be protected under the law. 

The law is inherently biased. 

Because the question isn't whether someone “chose” to drink or use drugs. The question is whether that person was capable of consenting to sexual activity at the time it occurred.

A person's vulnerability, no matter the cause, should never be an excuse to abuse them. 

On October 2, 2026, Governor Hochul said she intends to "close the loophole" in NY's state's law that currently makes it difficult for sexual assault survivors to claim they were mentally incapacitated during an assault if they were voluntarily intoxicated.

Whether someone made seemingly "risky" decisions prior to being sexually assaulted is victim-blaming 101. This narrative has effectively been used to turn the responsibility from the perpetrator of violence back on the victim for centuries. 

She shouldn't have been wearing that.

She shouldn't have flirted with him.

She shouldn't have drunk so much.

She shouldn't have gone home with him.

She shouldn't have done drugs.

She shouldn't have changed her mind.

A rape culture believes that women are responsible for not being attacked by men, rather than teaching men that another person's body is not available to them simply because the circumstances make access easier.

And this is where our cultural understanding of consent gets particularly revealing. We spend enormous amounts of energy teaching women how to avoid sexual assault. Don't walk alone. Watch your drink. Carry your keys between your fingers. Text your friends. Don't leave with someone you don't know. Don't drink too much. Don't take a drink from a stranger.

All of those precautions may be practical. None of them answer the fundamental question: Why are we teaching women how to avoid being sexually assaulted more enthusiastically than we teach people not to sexually assault them?

And even when women haven't engaged in such risks, they still face stigma and threats when coming forward. 

Suddenly we start hearing about how a woman could ruin a man's life with a "false allegation." And sure, false allegations about sexual assault do occur. So do false accusations of theft, fraud, assault, and every other crime. But we don't build our entire approach to those crimes around the hypothetical possibility that someone might lie. We investigate. We examine evidence. We determine what happened.

We should be able to do the same thing with sexual violence without beginning from the assumption that the woman is the problem. Or that it's a spite move to ruin someone's life. Because we see that sexual harassment and sexual abuse allegations have not ruined the lives of Donald Trump, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Pete Hegseth, or countless other men in power. 

Survivors also fear retaliation when coming forward. 

Not because women are inherently less credible. Because the social and institutional cost of speaking can be enormous.

And when money and power are involved, the stakes are higher. 

E. Jean Carroll also won a defamation suit against Trump because he publicly defamed her character, accused her of lying for personal gain, and insulted her appearance after she came forward. The Epstein survivors have reported relentless threats and harassment after coming forward about their abuse by powerful men. Jane Doe's attorney has stated that she's received multiple threats if she doesn't withdraw her civil lawsuit. 

The protections available to college students experiencing sexual harassment change dramatically depending on who occupies the White House.

When civil rights protections are shaped by political administrations rather than durable legislation, the rules can become a pendulum, expanding under one administration and contracting under the next.

Title IX is a federal civil rights law established in 1972 to prohibit sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Although sexual harassment had long been recognized as a form of sex discrimination under Title IX, the Department of Education issued guidance in 1997 clarifying schools’ responsibilities for addressing it. In 2011, the Obama administration went further to expand protections, explicitly stating that sexual violence, including rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, and sexual coercion, is a form of sexual harassment covered by Title IX.

And then the political pendulum swung when Trump took office.

The first Trump administration narrowed the definition of actionable sexual harassment and imposed additional procedural requirements, including live hearings and cross-examination. Critics argued this limited institutions' ability to make sexual harassment findings and deterred survivors from participating in the process due to the adversarial nature of cross-examinations during a live hearing. 

And then the pendulum swung the other direction under Biden.

In 2024, the Biden administration subsequently expanded the regulations again, broadening protections against sex-based harassment and removing the cross-examination during a live hearing requirement. 

And back again when Trump took office for his second term.

When Trump took office in January 2025, he issued an executive order to return to the 2020 regulations, and the 2024 Biden regulations were vacated by a federal court; in September 2026, the Trump administration formally reinstated the 2020 regulations. 

Who we vote into power matters. Especially when it comes to eliminating rape culture in America.  

If you believe women deserve to be heard, believed, and taken seriously when they speak about their experiences, then say so. The Like She Said Believe Women line is a small but very visible way to make that position known. 10% of proceeds are donated to RAINN, the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization, supporting its work on behalf of survivors of sexual violence.

                  

Because believing women does not mean abandoning due process or refusing to ask questions. It means refusing to begin with the assumption that women are lying, confused, exaggerating, or somehow responsible for what happened to them. Sometimes saying what you believe is the first step toward changing what everyone else is willing to tolerate.