Why Most Sexual Assaults Never Reach a Courtroom

This month, a case at Cornell University put a spotlight on what survivors and advocates have long described. In a civil complaint filed September 16, a woman alleges that seven members of Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity drugged and raped her at the fraternity house in October 2024, and that members used a group chat to invite others to join. She reported it to Cornell police on November 8, 2024; the lawsuit says the chapter and the seven students were suspended and then allowed to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays, which Cornell denies. None of the men faced criminal charges, but the district attorney reopened the case less than two weeks after the suit was filed.

The case is not an outlier on that campus. A 2025 Cornell survey found that 35% of undergraduate women and 8% of undergraduate men reported experiencing sexual assault during their time at the school.

Nationally, most of these cases never reach a courtroom. An estimated 73% of rapes and sexual assaults are never reported to police. Out of every 1,000 sexual assaults, 310 are reported, 50 lead to an arrest, 28 lead to a felony conviction, and 25 perpetrators are incarcerated. New research suggests the problem is larger than earlier estimates showed: a Tulane and UC San Diego study released September 16 found that nearly two-thirds of women have experienced abuse from a spouse or romantic partner.

The pattern is global. Nearly 1 in 3 women, an estimated 840 million, have experienced partner or sexual violence in their lifetime, a figure that has barely changed since 2000. In the past year alone, 316 million women who have ever had a partner were subjected to physical or sexual violence by that partner. Even so, only 0.2% of global development aid in 2022 went to programs focused on preventing violence against women, and funding fell further in 2025.

At its most extreme, the violence is lethal. 83,000 women and girls were intentionally killed in 2024, and 60%, or 50,000, were killed by intimate partners or family members, roughly one every 10 minutes. By comparison, only 11% of male homicide victims were killed by partners or family. This week, South Africa's president called violence against women a national shame after eleven women's bodies were found in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, since July, and he set a 90-day timeline for urgent action.

If you or someone you know needs support, the National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE (4673).

In her 40s, Joanna Strober had a demanding job and couldn't sleep, and she didn't know what was happening to her body. She saw a number of doctors, and none of them mentioned perimenopause. Instead they prescribed weight-loss drugs, SSRIs, and sleeping pills. When she finally found an expert provider, it meant driving an hour away and paying out of pocket. So she built what she couldn't find. Midi Health is now the largest virtual health platform for women in midlife, and in February 2026 it raised a $100 million round.

Strober's path is becoming common: a founder whose own body did the market research.

This isn't new. In the 1890s, Sarah Breedlove developed a scalp treatment for her own hair loss and built it into the Madam C.J. Walker empire. Management researchers call this user entrepreneurship, founders who build solutions to needs they have personally experienced. These founders start with a real understanding of the problem and an existing community of people who share it.

Many of these conditions are very common. In one study, 52.2% of postmenopausal women had female pattern hair loss, and low self-esteem was found in 60 percent of participants. Alopecia areata, the autoimmune form, affects about 2.1% of people over their lifetimes. Researchers have also found that pattern hair loss weighs more heavily on women than on men.

The broader gap is much larger. Women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health than men do, even though they live longer. Closing that gap could add at least $1 trillion a year to the global economy by 2040. A new Deloitte analysis projects $527 billion in additional U.S. women's health spending by 2030, driven largely by the 60 to 70 million American women over 45. Work is affected too. Strober has cited research suggesting that half of women skip raises or promotions because of menopause symptoms, and about 10% leave the workforce.

The funding data is mixed. Women's health funding fell back to $1.58 billion in 2025 after a spike in 2024. The consumer-facing segment fell harder. Deloitte found that overall health tech venture funding rose nearly 30% to $28.6 billion, while women's health investment fell 56%, from nearly $1.2 billion to $478 million.

Female founders face a similar split. Female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, or 27.7% of U.S. deal value. But AI startups took two-thirds of those dollars, and all-female teams received just 1.1% of VC dollars. Women's share of first-time venture recipients also fell from 27.7% in 2021 to 21.2% in 2025.

Women's health problems have long been treated as private and handled one patient at a time, and that is exactly why they have stayed underserved for so long. The founders now building in this space are the patients who couldn't find what they needed. Investors are starting to notice, but the funding still trails the size of the opportunity.

Add a little lace.

Lace is no longer saved for special occasions. This season it's an everyday layer, start with a lace-trimmed cami peeking out from under a relaxed sweater. If you're still holding onto summer's lace-trim skirts and slip dresses, wear the skirt with a soft sweater and tonal ballet flats, or put a denim jacket over a lace-trim dress for a more casual look. For more inspiration, check out how Parisians are doing it. The key is contrast--pair your delicate lace with something sturdier.