'We are all Gisèle': French women rise up against 'rape culture' during Gisèle Pelicot trial
'We are all Gisèle': French women rise up against 'rape culture' during Gisèle Pelicot trial
French women are protesting in the thousands to support Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband is on trial for inviting more than 50 men to rape her.
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.
You're viewing part of a thread.
Oh yeah, you got me there. Statistically small number of women who commit sexual assault completely absolves all men of being complicit in the sexual assault committed by mostly men. We definitely have to correct our perceptions on that one. Sure okay.
hey as a guy who was assaulted, please stop saying all men are complicit. do you understand what you're saying when you say that?
You are basically validating the people who are trying to dismiss the assaults by men by using the "women do it too!" defense.
I'm sorry for what happened to you and you deserve justice and support. But so do the literally millions upon millions of women who have been assaulted by men who are basically ignored or intimidated by our society into staying silent about their experience.
incredibly ironic. how can you dismiss assault and say I'm the one dismissing it? jesus please get a grip and get off the fucking internet. why did I even try?
If you actually read my comment you'll notice I did not dismiss anything.
Just stop and go away, please. No one wants to read your bigotry around here, you're not impressing anyone.
I'm not here to impress anybody I'm here to annoy you with uncomfortable truths. And you calling me a bigot for the things I've written here is rich.
Just leave, bro.
Brigading me and bullying is really a good way to prove your point.
Interesting, how you claim people are brigading you, when your downvotes are just a natural reaction of the disgusting slop you are spewing.
Oh, and claiming others are doing what you are doing, and that you are the victim, Are you Trump?
I didn't link this post and ask people to vote on it. BTW how creepy are you, trolling my profile?
Edit: speaking of which, I am now understanding where all these new downvotes on comments that are not in this post are coming from. Reported.
And, disgusting slop? Seriously? I'm not the one who is trying to obfuscate the issue with false outrage. I guarantee that every reactive comment and downvote I have gotten here came from a man and that nearly all of them didn't even bother to actually read the whole article.
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.
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.
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
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.
Who exactly do you think is being manipulated "my dear"?
The people here who are instantly arguing that old saw of "but women do it too!" People who saw the picture, didn't bother reading more than the title and maybe the first paragraph of the article, and then decided to be offended. Or the handful of people here who are arguing with those people that they should maybe read not only this whole article but the thousands of articles and reports on just how prevalent (and un-prosecuted) male perpetrated rape is in not only France but across the globe.
And that sign the woman was holding up wasn't the only one. All of those women are fucking pissed off that rape and sexual assault by men has been a growing steadily in the country for several years. Fucking hell, Gerard Depardieu got outed for sexual assault and the fucking president of the god damned country came to his side!!!
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.
Stop harassing me.
Get over yourself. I've been engaging with so many people on here you are just another voice in the din. My bullshit detector goes off and I respond. Plain and simple.
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
Yeah, I'm the sexist one.
Rape is overwhelmingly, by orders of magnitude, committed by men. And rape is enabled by men in power. And yes, it's being enabled by you right now. Because you are excusing the men who rape the way Trump excused the racists with his "both sides" comments.
"Not all men but always men" is fairly accurate because the number of women who rape other women is so small as to be statistically insignificant. But because you fear that you might be called out to hold other men accountable for their actions you've decided to be offended and try on the "both sides" argument. And since someone like me, who is going against that narrative, is being downvoted here you feel very safe doing so.
By trying to draft women into your argument you are ignoring the problem. Which is that a massive number of men think it is ok to rape women. And part of that is because those men know you will have their back by obfuscating the argument with straw men like "yeah but, women do it too".
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'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
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.
And so, what’s the course of action? To give all men some sterilization treatment?
Who the hell said that?
The case has put into the spotlight a growing problem with rape in France. The number of sexual assault victims in France increased by 33% in 2021 and nearly doubled from 2017, according to a government report. Women made up 89% of rape victims, while 96% of sexual violence perpetrators were men.
But out of almost 35,000 rapes recorded that year, just over 10% were prosecuted, and fewer than 5% resulted in a conviction. And the vast majority of rape or attempted rape victims − nine out of ten − never even file a complaint, the report found.
The plan is to make it so the system actually helps the victims. That's the idea. These protests bring light to the issue.
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.
Cool guess, stats say you're wrong.
But even if the true ratio was 1:50, what’s the solution?
See above.
Seriously this is fucking embarrassing, you're creating constant strawman arguments without any basis of anything reported.
So how exactly am I complicit for some dude raping someone? Just because I have a penis? And are all women completely exempt or are all women also complicit?
You are complicit because you are right now giving cover to those men who rape by using the same "both sides" argument that Trump used with racists.
Clear enough for you?
My comment only mentions me and all women. How exactly am I giving cover to men that rape? I raped nobody. The question I'm asking is what I've done wrong.
I don't know what trump and racism has anything to do with this.