IT was the mid-2000s, and a group of us were out on a boat off Karachi. I no longer remember who asked what we feared most. The men answered first. Losing a job. Illness. A bad car accident. Then the women answered. One after another, we said the same thing. Sexual assault.
One of the men was genuinely surprised. He said he had no idea that women like us feared a violent crime. We had drivers. We had gated homes. We led protected lives. What was there to fear? He wasn’t cruel. He simply did not know. And I have seen that same not-knowing again and again, in offices and drawing rooms — and, lately, on my phone.
A case at Cornell University, half a world away, has sparked a fierce debate online. But listen closely, and you notice who is doing the talking.
A former student has filed a civil lawsuit alleging that seven members of a fraternity drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2024. The complaint alleges that the men invited other members of the fraternity to join through a group chat. The local district attorney has reopened the case, and lawyers for the accused dispute her account. A grand jury may decide what happened that night.
An incident at Cornell University has sparked a fierce debate online.
But something else happened in the days after the lawsuit became public, and it needs no jury. Women on social media shared the story. They wrote about it, argued about it, and passed it on. The men on my feeds, many of them thoughtful, said almost nothing.
This is not a scientific survey. It is my feed. But I suspect many women reading this will recognise it. Not the facts of a case none of us can judge from here, but its shape. It’s why we say ‘text me when you get home’.
We do not need to know that girl to understand her fear. We have been rehearsing it since we were girls. Most men have never had to rehearse it. Perhaps that is why the story slid past them.
What struck me most about the Cornell allegations was the group chat. Whatever a court finds, the complaint describes something we all understand: a message sent to a group of young men, and the question of what each of them did when they read it. Some may have ignored it. Some may have laughed. Did anyone say ‘stop’? That is the question I keep asking about silence. Violence is rarely committed by crowds. But it is often permitted by them.
Closer to home, the anger has spilled into the streets. Last month, hundreds of women marched out of Delhi University after a series of rapes in the city. Their posters were blunt. Girls don’t need curfews, one read. Rapists need consequences. The authorities’ response told its own story. Women were told to stay out of parks at night. Classes were suspended at a women’s college. Once again, it was women who were asked to change their lives.
“When will society tell men in our country not to rape?” one student asked the Guardian. It is a question that could be asked in Karachi or Lahore just as easily as in Delhi. And in the US.
I do not think most men who stay silent are indifferent. I think the reasons are more ordinary than that. Some feel it is not their place, that women’s anger belongs to women. Some are uncomfortable, because talking about assault means talking about men, and they would rather not be lumped in. And some, like the man on the boat, simply do not know how large this fear is in women’s lives.
All of these are human. None of them is a good enough reason.
When women share these stories, we are not only grieving. We are warning each other: this is what happens, this is how it happens, watch for it. When only women carry that warning, it travels only among women. It never reaches the rooms where it might change something. The fraternity house. The group chat. The office joke that nobody challenges. Men have access to those rooms. Women often do not.
So, here is what I am asking for. Not grand statements, but small acts. Share the post. It takes a second, and it tells the men in your circle that this issue matters to you. Say something in the group chat. The moment a message turns ugly is the moment a single voice can turn it back. Talk to your sons. Not only about consent, but about what to do when a friend crosses a line. And ask the women in your life what they fear. Then listen to the answer.
The man on the boat was not a bad man. He was a man who had never been told. Twenty years later, I wonder how many men are still on that boat, surprised by fears they have never thought to ask about. What would it take for them to finally hear women?
The writer is a journalist and conducts writing workshops in Karachi.
X: @LedeingLady
Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2026
