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.
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.