KATRIN BENNHOLD2026年10月13日康奈尔大学Chi Phi兄弟会所。 Lauren Petracca for The New York TimesLast weekend, over brunch, my 14-year-old daughter brought up the alleged rape at Cornell, one of America’s top universities. I was surprised. She had a lot to say; it was all over her social media feeds, she told me.上周末吃早午餐时，我14岁的女儿提到了美国顶尖学府康奈尔大学发生的那宗涉嫌强奸案。我颇感意外。她对此滔滔不绝，告诉我自己的社交媒体已被这起事件刷屏。The lawsuit filed by a former student over what happened to her two years ago has reignited a national conversation in the United States about sexual assault on college campuses. It has also sparked conversations in my daughter’s high school in Wales, in my wider German family, in a WhatsApp group I share with friends from around the world.一名前学生就两年前的遭遇提起的诉讼在全美重新引发了关于大学校园性侵的大讨论。这场讨论同样波及我女儿就读的威尔士高中、我在德国的大家族亲属，以及我与全球友人共享的WhatsApp群组。Today I write about why the Cornell story is both a very American story — and one of the most universal stories of all.今天，我撰文探讨康奈尔事件为何既极具美国色彩又是全人类最具普遍性的事件之一。Why Cornell is resonating everywhere康奈尔事件为何在各处引发共鸣One young woman, naked and alone. A group of young men taking turns performing sexual acts on her. Dehumanizing messages exchanged on a Snapchat group including more than 50 men.一名年轻女性，赤身裸体，孤立无援。一群年轻男子轮流对她实施性侵犯。一个超过50名男性组成的Snapchat群组里充斥着各种非人化的言论。What took place on the night of Oct. 19, 2024, at Cornell University is now subject to a lawsuit filed by the young woman. There’s still a lot we don’t know: The seven defendants claim the sex was either consensual, initiated by the woman herself, or that they didn’t participate. The woman says it was assault.2024年10月19日夜间发生在康奈尔大学的事如今已成为这位年轻女子的诉讼依据。我们仍有诸多细节无从知晓：七名被告要么声称涉案性行为属双方自愿并由该女性主动发起，要么坚称自己并未参与。这名女子则表示这是一场性侵。But there’s a lot we do know. We know she made a report to the university police a few weeks later, telling them she could say “with 100 percent confidence I was raped.” We also know that the document the university police shared with prosecutors did not include that part of her statement, and that prosecutors in turn declined to pursue the case.但也有很多是我们确知的。我们知道，她在数周后向校警报案，并表示自己可以“百分之百肯定遭到了强奸”。我们同样知道，校警向检方提交的卷宗里并未包含其陈述的这一部分，检方随后也决定不对该案提起公诉。Some of the above — the competing narratives, the sense of institutional failure — might feel familiar to readers around the world. But the setting where it took place likely will not.上述某些情节——各执一词的说法、体制给人留下的全面失能的印象——世界各地的读者或许都不陌生。然而，此事的背景可能并不会让人觉得熟悉。Because at the heart of this story is a particularly American institution: the fraternity.因为处于这场风波核心的，是一个极具美国特色的制度组织：兄弟会(fraternity)。America’s fraternity culture美国的兄弟会文化Fraternities — residential social clubs named, somewhat quirkily, after Greek letters — are almost as old as America itself. Chi Phi, the fraternity at the center of the Cornell case, is widely regarded as the nation’s oldest, having been founded in 1824.兄弟会——这些有着略显怪异的希腊字母名称的住宿型社交俱乐部——历史几乎与美国本身一样悠久。处于康奈尔案中心的Chi Phi被公认为全美历史最悠久的兄弟会，创立于1824年。Since then, fraternities — along with sororities, their female counterparts — have become a fixture on campuses across the U.S., giving students a sense of belonging and a lifelong professional network.自那时起，兄弟会以及对应的女性组织姐妹会(sorority)便成为全美大学校园不可或缺的常态，为学生提供归属感和终身职业人脉网络。They’re also regularly under investigation for a range of offenses, including substance abuse, dangerous initiation rituals and, yes, sexual assault. My colleagues compiled a bunch of recent examples, including two fraternity houses at Penn State that prosecutors say were central to a cocaine distribution ring; a fraternity ritual at Northern Arizona University that left a student dead; and a lawsuit filed by a former student of the University of South Florida who said she was given alcohol until “helpless,” and then sexually assaulted at a fraternity event.这些组织也频繁因一系列违法违规行为接受调查，包括物质滥用、危险的入会仪式，当然还有性侵。我的同事梳理了一批近期的案例，其中包括：检方指控作为可卡因交易据点的宾夕法尼亚州立大学两处兄弟会会所；北亚利桑那大学导致一名学生死亡的入会仪式；以及南佛罗里达大学一名前学生提起的诉讼，指控自己在兄弟会活动中被灌酒至“无力反抗”后遭到性侵。The Cornell case has only increased the scrutiny.康奈尔大学的案件更是让此类审视持续升温。My colleague Emma Goldberg, who has been reporting from the Cornell campus, told me that a few ingredients can come together at fraternities to create a fertile environment for harmful behavior. (Watch her video above.)一直在康奈尔大学现场报道的同事埃玛·戈德堡告诉我，多种因素在兄弟会交织叠加，为有害行为滋生提供了温床。（观看她的视频。）Fraternities are often all-male. They’re selective — those who want to join typically have to go through initiation rituals. They’re usually residential — fraternity members live in a shared house. And their parties tend to be the center of campus social life.兄弟会通常全由男性组成。它们有严苛的选拔机制——申请加入者通常须经历入会仪式。它们通常兼具住宿属性——成员共同生活在同一栋房屋内。它们的派对往往是校园社交生活的核心。This tight-knit, single-sex environment fuels a strong sense of brotherhood, Emma said. “You’ve been in the trenches together and you’re bonded and you kind of feel that you owe one another everything,” she told me. Women, in this world, tend to be secondary.埃玛指出，这种紧密且单一性别的环境助长了强烈的兄弟情谊。“你们共同经历过摸爬滚打，关系紧密相连，在某种程度上甚至觉得彼此休戚与共，”她告诉我。而在这样的圈子里，女性往往沦为次要角色。The parties, in turn, provide a sense of social power. Combine all this and you get a dynamic in which some members can feel emboldened to misbehave, and others an obligation to stand by their brothers regardless of what they do. At Cornell, Emma told me, students joining a fraternity sometimes sign a pledge to protect its secrets.与此同时，派对反过来赋予了成员一种社交权力感。将所有这些因素交织在一起，就会形成一种行为机制：部分成员因盲目膨胀而肆无忌惮地做出不端行为，其他成员则认为无论兄弟做了什么都有义务予以支持庇护。埃玛告诉我，在康奈尔大学，加入兄弟会的学生有时还会签署保守组织秘密的誓约。Supporters of fraternities point to research that suggests they help improve universities’ student retention and graduation rates.兄弟会的支持者则援引相关研究指出，兄弟会有助于提高大学的学生留校率和毕业率。But opponents point to reports like one Cornell issued in March. It showed 52 percent of Cornell undergraduate women affiliated with Greek life organizations (as fraternities and sororities are often called) reported experiencing sexual assault. Among other undergraduates with no such affiliation, it was 29 percent.但反对者列举了诸如康奈尔大学今年3月发布的一份报告。报告显示，隶属于希腊生活组织（对兄弟会与姐妹会等社团的称呼）的康奈尔大学本科女性中，有52%表示曾遭遇过性侵；而在没有此类社团归属的其他本科女性中，这一比例为29%。上周在康奈尔大学的抗议。 Heather Ainsworth for The New York TimesA familiar story似曾相识的事件Fraternities may be uniquely American; sexual assault is not. If the Cornell incident has resonated around the world, it’s because the same ingredients that make some fraternities toxic exist elsewhere, too.兄弟会社团或许为美国所独有，性侵现象却并非如此。康奈尔事件之所以在世界各地引起共鸣，是因为导致部分兄弟会走向畸变毒化的相同诱因在其他地方同样存在。I spoke to Michael Flood, an Australian professor of sociology who studies the social dynamics of male-dominated groups. He told me in such environments — whether it’s an American fraternity, an Australian football team, a British military unit or an Indian Instagram group chat — men can sometimes care more about the approval of other men than about the humanity of women. Add high levels of alcohol, drug and/or pornography use, and “you get a greater risk of sexual violence by members of that subculture.”我采访了专门研究男性主导群体社会机制的澳大利亚社会学教授迈克尔·弗拉德。他向我表示，在类似的环境中——不论是美国的大学兄弟会、一支澳大利亚橄榄球队、一个英国军队单位，还是一个印度Instagram聊天群——男性有时更看重同性群体的认可，而非女性的人格尊严。一旦叠加酗酒、药物滥用或沉溺色情内容，“该亚文化圈成员实施性暴力的风险就会显著攀升。”“There’s nothing specifically American about this,” Flood said. All countries have “contexts where male bonding, norms of male loyalty, codes of sexism and objectification are strong”: Women are of interest primarily as sexual partners, and men get status through sexual conquest or the mistreatment of women. Some Cornell fraternities had openly sexist rituals like inviting a group of sorority members to serve the brothers dinner while being plied with alcohol, Emma told me.“这绝非美国独有的现象，”弗拉德表示。所有国家都存在“男性抱团纽带、男性忠诚规范、性别歧视与物化女性准则根深蒂固的环境”：在这些环境中，女性主要被当作性伴侣看待，男性则通过性征服或虐待女性来获取群体地位。埃玛告诉我，康奈尔大学的部分兄弟会甚至存在公开的性别歧视仪式，例如邀请一群姐妹会成员在被劝酒的同时为兄弟会成员侍奉晚餐。Chi Phi was banned from campus after the former student first reported being raped in 2024. The woman is now suing the university, Chi Phi, her own sorority and the seven men she says attacked her.在这名前学生于2024年首次报案遭强奸后，Chi Phi便被禁止在校园内开展活动。这名女性目前正对康奈尔大学、Chi Phi、她自己所在的姐妹会以及指控对其施暴的七名男子提起诉讼。None of the men have been charged with a crime. Prosecutors have said they’ll reopen the investigation, and Cornell plans to hire an outside team to investigate the case.目前涉案男子均未受到刑事指控。检方已表示将重启调查，康奈尔大学也计划聘请外部团队调查此案。No matter the verdict, the defendants aren’t the only ones facing judgment. So is a culture that to this day has failed to keep women safe, in America and everywhere else.无论最终判决如何，面临审判的不仅是案件被告。在美国及世界各地，那种迄今仍未能保障女性安全的社会文化，同样在接受公众的审视。A familiar sense of outrage: Why does it feel as if every generation gets its own campus rape story.一种似曾相识的愤怒：为什么每一代人似乎都有校园性侵事件的记忆？本文节译自时报全球新闻电邮The World。 翻译：纽约时报中文网