“If you have been on social media this week,” Alex Cooper started a recent episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, “you have most certainly seen four words everywhere, ‘I Am Jane Doe.’ As a woman, you probably saw those words and you knew exactly what they meant. Maybe even your body knew before your brain did. The words themselves are simple, but they carry the weight of countless stories we hold as women.”

Cooper went on to explain that these words carry stories of women we know and maybe even our own. In light of the Cornell University case, in which a student alleges she was sexually assaulted by seven men at a frat house on campus in 2024, Cooper said she would focus an entire podcast episode on the “I am Jane Doe” movement, which came in response to the Cornell student breaking her silence.

“More than one in five women have experienced rape,” Cooper stated. “Every once and a while, a story becomes so big and it resonates with so many people that it’s clear it has the power to change the way we talk about an issue. I think we might be witnessing one of those very moments right now.”

Cooper invited Dr. Kate Manne, who happens to be a professor at Cornell University, onto the podcast to discuss the movement. Manne, who described the overall mood on campus as “grim,” agreed with Cooper that this moment in time “does feel different.”

“It feels like there has been a kind of simmering rage, frankly on behalf of women, that a lot of women are feeling, and also people who just care a lot about women,” Manne said. “This has crystalized something and it’s become something much bigger. It has a lot of momentum.”

Manne believes the Cornell 7 incident has brought even more attention to how little safety women and girls feel like they have. Now, she’s seeing more women demand safety for themselves, their daughters, their sisters, and their friends.

“If what Jane Doe alleges in her lawsuit is true — and for the record, I believe her,” said Manne, “let’s extend that out. I think the hashtag ‘I am Jane Doe’ is doing precisely that.”

Manne says prior to Jane Doe’s case making national news headlines she was “very aware” of sexual violence occuring at Cornell. “I came to Cornell as an assistant professor in 2013,” she said. “I immediately had young women in my office talking to me about sexual assault.”

Manne says statistics indicate that one in four female undergraduates will be subjected to sexual violence during their four years in college and that, most of the time, there will not be an “adequate institutional response” from the school. Still, she emphasizes that it’s not just a “Cornell problem,” but that the issue exists across all college campuses.

In the specific case of Jane Doe, Manne listed ways she believes the system has failed the young woman.

“I mean, one way that it’s failed her, and this has not been really widely talked about, is she went to Cornell Health because she had a UTI and she talked about the fact that her injuries were traumatic and, according to her allegations, the physician or medical provider, whoever it was, didn’t follow up and, for example, offer to take a rape kit,” said Manne. “After what she alleged, she went to Cornell University Police. They have all of the powers of any other law enforcement officer, but they’re employed by the university… They had an officer take hours of her statement. There’s no evidence that it was a trauma-informed officer who understood how to really sit down with someone who has been subject to sexual violence.”

Manne also said Cornell University Police deleted the sentence, “I am 100% confident that I was raped,” from Jane Doe’s statement. Still, there are some things she believes Cornell did that were “very positive.”

“They immediately suspended the fraternity, meaning they can’t hold parties, they can’t hold events, they’re not recognized on campus as having the status of a fraternity,” said Manne. “They issued a suspension for those seven students, and then they expelled two students. But five of the seven are left free to graduate. And it is very hard for me to understand… why Jane Doe ends up dropping out and not getting her tuition refunded while five of the seven men who she alleged attacked her are left free to graduate with a Cornell degree.”

But why do these types of incidents occur in the first place? Among Manne’s theories is a quote from radical feminist theorist Marilyn Frye. “Straight men in groups, they are having sex with women, but they actually want the love and admiration and everything else from male peers,” said Manne. “They’re actually more oriented towards performing their masculinity for their male peers and showing off. And women are then often just a means to an end. They’re trophies in this.”

Manne pointed to two parts of the “bro code” that contribute to the situation as well. Men often believe that if another man does something wrong, it’s against the rules to call it out, and they feel empathy for other men, feeling unsure if coming forward against a “bro” will ruin his life and whether or not that’s necessary.

Cooper also asked Manne what she believes needs to happen at universities to prevent these kinds of incidents. “I think we need to get really serious about looking at police departments on university campuses and their role in this and having trauma-informed officers doing this kind of interviewing,” said Manne. “And we need to get serious about a zero tolerance policy at universities where if a student is found responsible or at fault for sexual misconduct, in my opinion, they should be expelled.”

But also, “this is an opportunity to continue to push [back] at the patriarchy,” she continued. “There are so many pieces of it to dismantle, but we can begin to work on that process. And this is a moment to say, look, a victim is never to blame for what happens to her. A rapist is 100% the responsible party for a rape, and we need to be protecting and supporting survivors of sexual violence and not protecting perpetrators.”