Free pussy in the room upstairs

There are phrases that are enough to hear once for them to haunt us, that hurt our soul when we remember them. This has happened to me these days with the so-called Cornell case. "Free pussy in the room upstairs," said the message in a group chat where there were about fifty men. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. The phrase explains how violence against women has been normalized to the point of brutality.

In the so-called Cornell case, a student has reported being the victim of a gang rape (seven classmates assaulted her for seven hours) while she was drugged, in a situation of extreme vulnerability. According to the information that has emerged, one of those involved is the one who announced, in the aforementioned chat, that there was "free pussy in the room upstairs." Fifty boys received the message. The most uncomfortable question to ask oneself is: how many of these students saw it and why didn't they do anything?

This speaks not only of the aggressors, but of a structure that allows these things to happen. It speaks of rapists, but also of men who decided to look the other way. Of a culture that dehumanizes women and turns our body into merchandise, spectacle, and an object of consumption and violence, a body that can be destroyed. This is rape culture, a concept that, contrary to what many want it to mean, does not explain that all men are rapists, but that there exists a cultural system that trivializes, justifies, silences, and even tolerates sexual violence.

This is on one hand. On the other, Cornell forces us to look at an uncomfortable reality, due to the harshness of the facts, and at the same time because it dismantles a narrative that some (the extreme right, but not only them) repeat over and over again, and that we have heard extensively lately, especially in relation to Ceuta: the rapists are the others, sexual violence comes from outside and the problem is immigrants. As simple and as absurd as that.

This case, involving American university students, shows that sexist violence does not understand origins, religions, or skin colors. The question is which masculinity is legitimized. We cannot explain sexual violence by systematically blaming immigrants while ignoring that which is exercised by the men we consider our own. Hegemonic masculinity too often teaches that male desire is above women's will, that sexual success gives status, and that the female body is a territory to be conquered. And that men must celebrate the conquests of others, reinforcing brotherhood, instead of stopping them when they are abusive. When this logic reaches its extreme, a woman ceases to be perceived as a person with her own will and becomes an object at their disposal.

The problem, therefore, is structural. Violence against women is not just an individual tragedy, because it reveals the norms that make it possible and reinforce it, the silences that perpetuate it, and the structures that tolerate it.

The Cornell case speaks about us. About our sons, brothers, friends, colleagues, and students. That is why we must put the focus on the masculinities that are the origin of these acts of violence.

But now more than ever we must also vindicate the progress achieved by feminism. If these cases can be reported today, if specialized services and resources exist, it is because for decades the feminist movement has fought against silence. But now this silence is once again in dispute. The extreme right wants to dismantle the feminist struggle, question support services, discredit victims, and replace the structural explanation of violence with a convenient enemy: the immigrant. Attacking women and migrant people is part of the same project of erosion and rolling back of rights.

If they win, we lose. We lose rights, resources, the capacity to report, and sexual and affective education. And, above all, we lose freedom.

For the colleague from Cornell. For all the women who have suffered sexual violence. For everyone, women and men alike, now more than ever, our best protection is feminism.