No Daughter, No Problem?

I’m not going to write about the Cornell University case and the allegations that a 20-year-old female student was drugged and sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members in 2024. No words can capture how horrendous this is.

What I will write about is the reaction of men to it. 

There has, of course, been a whole lot of silence, which is always very disturbing (you may not know what to say but please say something so we know you don’t think it’s ok).

But what I dislike possibly even more than the silence is the ‘I have a daughter so’ and ‘Imagine if this was your daughter’ comments.

Why do you need to have a daughter to care about what happens to women?

Why isn’t the fact that we’re human beings enough for you to treat us with respect and to defend our right to safety and dignity?

Would you care if you didn’t have a daughter?

It’s easy to be outraged when you imagine your own daughter being hurt or disrespected. But if you only care about your women and not about women in general then that’s a problem.

Women aren’t just men’s daughters, wives, mothers or sisters. We don’t matter because we are those things. We matter because we are people and we should have the same default rights to respect as men.

I respected men before I had a son. I cared about animals being well treated before I had a kitten. And men shouldn’t need to have a daughter to prompt them to see lack of respect for women as equals as a problem.