They line up in front of a courthouse in southeastern France, from morning to evening, and have gathered in the thousands in cities across the country. They hold signs reading, “one rape every six minutes,” “not all men but always a man,” and “giving in is not consenting.”
They chant: “Rapist we see you, victim we believe you.”
Women across France are rallying in support of Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old reluctant icon whose husband is on trial in the city of Avignon for systematically drugging her and inviting dozens of men, 50 of whom are now his co-defendants, into their home to rape her over nearly a decade.
The shocking case has sparked what many women in France call a long-overdue reckoning over “rape culture” and systemic sexism in the way the judicial system handles sexual violence.
Sorry you’re getting this reaction. I am a man who was abused by women and all the support groups lead to me taking to a room full of women about it. Do men come forward less often? Yes. It would have to be like 1 in 100 men coming forward for it to be equal. I’ve had one other male friend who has been assaulted, but over half of the women I’ve been friends with have.
If it helps anyone with that being anecdotal, you have to look at the statistics of who is doing it: people in power. Just that alone means more men simply have the opportunity. Add to that that men are told sex is power, and that men who have sex often are virile, whereas women who do are slut shamed. It’s getting better, but still far off.
Anyway I’ll take the downvotes, but every statistic we have shown is that men are the primary antagonist in the vast majority of sexual assault against both men and women.
I’m sorry you were abused and I really wish this were a world where this sort of thing didn’t happen.
Well the idea with protests like this is to shine so bright a light on it that we force governments to act. If we do that enough, we can make this happen less and less to everyone.
As many of the comments in this post have demonstrated, far too many people are more interested in whataboutism and not very interested in creating true accountability. Until we overcome this bias I don’t know if we’re going to be able to really hold governments accountable for this sort of thing. When women talk about the patriarchy, this is what they’re referring to.
Personally, I would imagine that the real issue with THIS ARTICLE is the picture they chose to forefront it. Why would they choose that one? Rage engagement, to drive engagement and ad revenue, because it has been proven time and time again, that divisiveness brings money. There is a lot of coverage about her and her bravery, as it should be, because she is a massive hero.
If we choose any other posts about the case, that don’t drive themselves on such divisiveness, and and consider the top comments, we can see that the focus is where it should be, on her story and his conviction, yet they rarely get as much engagement as this one.
It is manufactured ragebait to feed the algorithm, using divisiveness as its drive. And it is both succeeding, and taking away from the real point, her story and the support and help that she, and all rape victims deserve.
Yeah the problem is the picture on the article and not the men on here who took immediate offense to it instead of paying attention to the actual message and problem. Which is rampant sexual assault that is basically being ignored by the authorities and society at large.
This woman was unknowingly raped by more than 50 men (possibly hundreds) over god knows how long. All orchestrated by her husband. Some of those people were supposedly highly respected individuals and yet not one of them saw anything wrong with what they were doing.
But your anger is with the woman holding up a sign saying “not all men but always men”. You are exactly like the people who took umbrage at the black lives matter protests because they were saying “black lives matter” and not “all lives matter”. To be blunt, you’re missing the message. Not because you don’t actually get it. But because you don’t want to.
Holy shit, take a breath, calm down, and go touch grass. Funny that you see no problem with generalizations like “always a man”, but fail to see the irony in your response. Do more men than women commit sexual violence/asssaults? Absolutely. Is it ALWAYS a man who is the one committing this crime? Absolutely not.
Your constant refusal to even acknowledge this fact is why you’re not convincing anyone of your points.
Everyone arguing with me and downvoting me came in with their minds already made up. And downvotes don’t bother me. I’d rather speak the truth to angry ignorants than sit in silence and watch the misinformation continue to propagate unchallenged.
A woman was raped over decades by 51 men and your issue is the article has a picture you don’t like as the opening image?
You’re just trying to create drama, anybody not braindead can see that what was done to her was beyond atrocious and that she is a hero. Yet the publisher of that article deliberately chose a picture that divisive to generate engagement, get clicks and thus, get paid.
I have been very vocal about this case since the start, because what was done to her was an absolute atrocity, and Gisele literally waived her right to anonimity in order to raise awareness about it. She is a hero, he is a monster, and that is what we should all be focusing on, yet whoever published this article, simply decided to fling mud.
We’re all being manipulated, my dear.
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I am not engaging with you, or calling you “my dear”, unless that is your sock puppet. Plus, you are being farmed for engagement.
Stop harassing me.
You got downvoted in a comment thread like this for being a sexist ass and yes I define sexism as discrimination against someone on the basis of their sex
Women can rape people and so can Men
By the logic of stereotyping all men as rapists because some of them commit rape you could say the entirety of humanity is evil because of those capitalist assholes and bigots
Stop ignoring that both Female and Male sexes can commit rape
Stereotyping every Man as a rapist and ignoring the female rapists is sexist
I don’t beleive you replied to that person in good faith based on your other interactions on this thread
We solve problems by not ignoring certain parts of them or the entire problem
Ignoring problems only allows them to grow bigger
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And so, what’s the course of action? To give all men some sterilization treatment?
How does this help with anything?
And, I promise you, the real numbers are probably scarily equal, just like with domestic abuse. Because men are definitely taught to never come forward with those.
But even if the true ratio was 1:50, what’s the solution? Let’s write the law that when it’s a man, he gets a double prison sentence. Or maybe the police shouldn’t believe men who say they were assaulted, but vise-versa barely check, cuz for sure it’s true?
Criminal statistics should in no way enforce the course of justice or legislation. They could only maybe influence where money is allocated in prevention campaigns. At best.
Who the hell said that?
The plan is to make it so the system actually helps the victims. That’s the idea. These protests bring light to the issue.
Cool guess, stats say you’re wrong.
See above.
Seriously this is fucking embarrassing, you’re creating constant strawman arguments without any basis of anything reported.
I’d really like to see updated statistics when things like gendered laws that define it as something like unconsentual penetration with a penis is taken into account
Rape isn’t a gendered thing, both male amd female sexes should do it and it shouldn’t have a gendered legal definition