Hi all,
I have still been feeling into and thinking about the importance of context this past week and what it means to our personal, everyday lives. How context around family, or lack of, and culture, is so interwoven into how we navigate every part of our lives. And how our dreams work with us to speak to our particular contexts and work with them.
Feeling into all this when several things came out in the news that hit me. And, yes, I do feel hit by them.
First, yes, the world around us – even things that don’t seem to “touch” us directly, touch us directly and indirectly. We live in a time where wars and conflicts are live streamed, where wars and conflicts are also assiduously not given public airtime. We live in a time when, right now, we are witness to war, to at least two genocides, to oppression based on “politics” in many ways, including here in my own country.
Of course, this deeply affects us as we move through our days making meals, working, tending to ourselves, our families, our communities. And, as we try to sort out propaganda from the truth – because propaganda is part of what we also are navigating.
But that is not even the “world” context I want to explore a little this week. Two pieces of news that have really struck me besides the larger global ones, are the announcement of the release of new Title IX Rules [which is really just a return a 2020 version] and, at the same time, the resurfacing of a gang rape/assault committed by seven men at Cornell University in 2024. This is back in the news because the woman who was assaulted has filed a civil lawsuit against the university and the men.
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Let’s start with the Cornell story. A trigger warning here – the next paragraph describes the assault as alleged by the survivor. If you have had experience with sexual assault and feel unable to take in the full story, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
In brief, a woman has alleged that she became intoxicated at the fraternity house and was pressured by several members to do more drugs and alcohol. She was then pressured into sex with two members, even though, as her lawsuit alleges, she was “incapable of consent.” A few hours later, one of the men involved texted the fraternity Snapchat group chat, a group that included 50 other men, saying that there was “free p****” upstairs at the house. Seven members then sexually assaulted her over several hours until early the next morning.
The woman who alleged this brutal assaulted filed a report with Cornell and there was an internal investigation. The result was that the fraternity was barred from campus but the men who assaulted her were only suspended and given the option to write essays to lessen the punishment.
No arrests were made. None. Even when, at the time the woman made the complaint, the group chat was given to the university police and then eventually the real police. Still no arrests were made.
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What does this have to do with Title IX?
Title IX was created not about sports but to combat sexual discrimination on campus across the US, where I live. It includes sports, yes, but was not created for sports. [I feel I need to say this because the administration is using the sports aspect as a talking point, targeting trans women around sports.]
The woman who filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell is doing it under Title IX.
Title IX came into being in 1972 to update Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in employment but did not include educational institutes and did not include sexual discrimination. Title IX was written to combat discrimination based on “sex” in any educational program receiving federal financial assistance. The US Supreme Court later [in the 80s and 90s] defined sexual harassment and assault both as forms of sex discrimination.
Title IX has had many iterations and redefinitions. The current US Administration, when it was in place in 2020, stripped Title IX of its power by creating a process that was deeply prohibitive for a person filing a complaint. In that iteration of Title IX, the person filing a complaint had to offer a preponderance of evidence for proof. It also did not include discrimination against people in the LGBTQ+ community.
The Biden administration worked to rewrite this and expanded discrimination to include more clearly people of the LGBTQ+ community and taking away some preponderance of evidence that fell upon victims. It also widened the definition of sexual assault to include more than just outright “rape” but by groping or language or other forms of assault.
The current administration formally restored the Title IX rules from 2020, the one which does not include protections for the LGBTQ+ community.
Another aspect of the Title IX rules that are about to go back into effect is that it narrows the definitions and standards of what constitutes sexual harassment. It also gives accused students “procedural protections” which include live campus “hearings” in certain cases. Hearings where both the accused and the accuser/victim are present and hearings that allow for “cross-examination” including about the character of the victim.
Of course, many victims will not report sexual harassment if they know they will have to go into a “hearing” like this – which is not a legal hearing but a university one. Most people who are victims of sexual harassment in any setting are justifiably scared to report.
We all know that the statistics around how often people who assault are actually arrested or convicted of violent crimes is dismal. We all know that it can be the victim who suffers the most when trying to bring a sexual assault to the police – including university police. We also all know that sexual assault on campus is widespread – 1 in 4 women in undergrad experience some form of assault or misconduct at major universities here in the U.S. [Study cited at the end of the article.]
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So, what does this all have to do with context, our lives and our dreams? Everything is too easy of an answer, I think, but it is also true.
On a prestigious university campus, seven men participated in an assault [allegedly] and 50 men knew it was happening and said nothing. Nothing really happened to them, any of them. This sends a very clear message to women about safety and about reporting assault when it does happen.
Also, the very regulation that is to protect people of sexual discrimination in educational settings being stripped of language to protect both women and people in the LGBTQ+ community, this regulation that also strips power around reporting and pursuing justice in sexual discrimination on campuses, which includes assault, is being put in place by an administration that includes people who have been convicted of sexual assault and harassment.
As a woman who lives in this culture, it creates a context that I am not safe on campuses or anywhere in the larger culture around the crime of sexual assault. As a person who identifies with and is an ally with the LGBTQ+ community, this also creates a context that violence against these communities is condoned.
It creates a culture of consent around sexual violence. Not just on campuses but everywhere in my country. It creates a culture of protecting predators – most of whom are men.
This is a context I walk with in my everyday life. Every. Day.
And so do you. Whether you are a woman, part of the LGBTQ+ community, a man, a member of any political party. Whether you are Black, brown, white, Indigenous, disabled, etc. We all live in context to this reality – different contexts, yes, but in relationship to it.
For example, if I am a Black woman, the chances of being believed by law enforcement around reporting sexual assault are way less likely than if I am a white woman. Or if I am a white man accused of sexual assault, I am much more likely to receive the benefit of the doubt or get a slap on the wrist. Or, if I am a man of any race, I am less likely to report or be believed around being a victim of sexual assault.
For me, a woman who has Italian/Irish heritage, when I go out for a run or even just a walk, I am hyperaware, ALWAYS, of my surroundings. I make sure I run during the day and not at dusk or night.
When I go out in public for anything – a meal, an ice cream cone, a day at the beach, the frigging grocery store – I am always, ALWAYS, aware that I need to be conscious of my surroundings in order to be safe. When I sleep alone in the house when Bill is away, even in our small town, I sleep with some defensive weapon within hands reach.
This is not paranoia. This is living within the context of my culture.
And if I am a person who has personally experienced sexual assault or has a beloved who has – which are both true for me – then the news cycle of another assault, another rape, another gang rape does affect my day to day. Another story where the people who commit these assaults are not brought to justice, not even brought to court in many cases, does affect my day to day. Another story from the wars and genocides we witness of sexual assault and rape being used as weapons of war does, yes, very deeply touch me.
It deeply affects us, affects how we make choices and decisions in our lives. Affects how we move through the world.
Our dreams work with us within the realities of these kinds of contexts – sexual violence, racial oppression and violence, violence against communities like the LGBTQ+ community. How to recognize these contexts and how to navigate them.
I have spoken with several dreamers in the last few days who have articulated being effected by these particular stories. Feelings around remembering their own experiences, yes, as well as their own healing journeys. Including how far we can come around healing and integration around sexual assault – especially with the help of our dreams.
And a big part of how they help us is to acknowledge the realities within which we live, all the contexts, which we need to navigate.
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Here’s a source I used and another website with a lot more stats if you are interested. I also include the names of the seven named defendants in the Cornell civil rights lawsuit, because I feel it is important to bring names to the ones accused of sexual violence.
Cantor, D., Fisher, B., Chibnall, S., Harps, S., Townsend, R., Thomas, G., Lee, H., Kranz, V., Herbison, R., & Madden, K. (2019). Report on the AAU Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct. Association of American Universities.
Statistics – National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). (2017, October 13). National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics/
Named defendants in the lawsuit are Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar.