What We Are Expected to Live With

Over the last few days, I have spent hours reading stories from women using #IAmJaneDoe. I found myself thinking about the calculation women are asked to make when a man crosses a boundary.

Do I tell someone?
What happens if people do not believe me?
Do I report it?
What happens if they do not believe me?
Do I confront the person?
Do I stay quiet?

I know something about that calculation because I have made it myself.

The Calculation

The sexual assault happened once. The harassment did not. Harassment happened repeatedly throughout my professional career. Different people. The circumstances changed. Different workplaces and even Spiritual Communities. But the choices were often familiar: Do I say something? Do I report it? Should I confront the person? Is it easier to walk away?

The first time I was harassed, I went to a female supervisor. I expected her to understand what I was dealing with. Instead, she told me, “Well, if you want the promotions, you are going to have to deal with the way it is, it is not going to change.”

I understood the message differently than I might have today.

At the time, I heard it as practical advice. This is how workplaces work. This is what women put up with if they want to move forward. If I complained, I could become the problem. If I wanted the job, the promotion, or a future there, I needed to learn how to manage what was happening to me.

I did not hear her words as permission. I heard them as a warning.

Interestingly, I am now the age she was when she gave me that advice. Now I hear something else in them. She was telling me that the behavior would not change, and that the burden of adapting would fall on me. The person crossing the boundary was not being asked to stop. I was being asked to decide what I was willing to endure.

That was the calculation.

I could stay and accept it. I could report it and risk being seen as difficult or disruptive. Or I could find another position and slide out the side door. None of those choices changed the culture. They only changed what I would have to pay for it.

I have never forgotten that conversation. It taught me that advancement could come with uncomfortable situations, and I was expected to decide how much I was willing to put up with to get ahead. The person who crossed the boundary could make the choice, but I was expected to manage what happened next.

By the time I was sexually assaulted, I had already been conditioned to believe that this was somehow part of being a woman in a professional career. I had learned that men could cross boundaries and I was the one expected to figure out how to deal with it. Unfortunately, I had learned to ask what I had done to cause the problem instead of asking why someone else believed they had the right to cross the boundary.

I weighed the pros and cons and decided not to report it. My solution was to find another job, and that decision followed me. It tanked my career in ways I could not have fully understood when I made the choices I did for my own safety or peace of mind.

What Women Learned

I worked in New York City from the late 1980s through 2001, first as a temp, then as a professional, and eventually as a consultant. Women knew which companies were good places to work and which ones to avoid. We warned one another about workplaces and men because those warnings could affect our careers, our livelihoods, and our safety. Long before a warning became public, women often had already learned to protect one another in private.

That lesson was not limited to workplaces. The same calculation can happen on college campuses, in religious communities, and anywhere people depend on institutions or relationships for belonging, housing, education, employment, or support. Speaking up can mean risking much more than the immediate situation. We ask women and other vulnerable people to consider all of that before they decide whether to speak.

Then we ask why they waited.

Jane Doe

That is why Jane Doe has stayed with me.

I do not know Jane Doe, and I do not know everything that happened to her. I know that the person identified in court filings as Jane Doe reported an alleged sexual assault to Cornell campus police in 2024. She later filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell, Chi Phi and others. The Tompkins County district attorney has reopened the criminal investigation and said the case will be presented to a grand jury. The allegations remain allegations, and defendants have denied them.

She made a different choice than I did. She reported. When the criminal process did not move forward at that time, she found another door. I admire that because I understand what it took to make that choice.

Taking Back Control

And then there is her name.

She is proceeding under the pseudonym Jane Doe in the public legal process. That gives her some control over how much of herself becomes part of the public record. Now posts are circulating online that claim to identify her, although those claims have not been independently verified.

That pisses me off because it is about more than privacy. She made a choice about how much of herself she was willing to put into this process. As a victim, she reported. She filed a civil case. Then she used a pseudonym. Trying to expose her identity takes control away from the person who made a difficult decision about what she could risk.

Whatever people believe about the allegations, attempting to identify her is another decision being made about her without her consent.

Who Pays the Price?

That is the part I cannot get past.

I chose not to report. Jane Doe chose to report. Neither choice protected us from consequences. My choice meant finding another job, and it tanked my career. Her choice has brought her into a public civil case and a reopened criminal investigation while she is also trying to retain some control over her identity.

We keep asking women why they made the choices they made.