Strength Through Trauma: What We Can Learn From Gisèle Pelicot
Photo Courtesey: Christophe SIMON / AFP via Flickr
Most rape victims have been forced for years to quietly struggle with shame. France’s Gisèle Pelicot is almost single-handedly reversing the script by putting the shame of rape where it belongs – on the perpetrators of often-invisible crimes. We now owe so much to a woman who owes us nothing. And she is making quite the change.
Pelicot’s courage in ensuring that humiliation is shifted to the perpetrator cannot be stressed enough. Rape victims have quietly internalised the trauma of sexual abuse for far too long, bearing the weight of guilt on their shoulders. Unlike many other #MeToo moments, this is a story of one woman against 50 men. Generally, we are more familiar with cases of multiple women accusing a single perpetrator.
This crime occurred in the small village of Mazan in the south of France. Boasting a population of only 6229, everyone knows everyone. Yet, Pelicot refuses to accept any embarrassment or humiliation. She states: ‘When you’re raped there is shame and it’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them. I wanted all women victims of rape… to say: Madame Pelicot did it, we can do it too.’ She is determined to repurpose her horrific tale in service of others.
Her transparency is unprecedented. Usually, the victim’s names are not published in the press. Yet Pelicot has refused anonymity, inviting and urging the world in as her witness. She fought to have the videos recorded by her former husband shown in court, resisting embarrassment whilst the sordid and sick acts were displayed on screen. As her lawyer Antoine Camus told the courtroom, showing them publicly was essential ‘to look rape straight in the eyes.’ By refusing a closed-door trial, Mrs. Pelicot has transformed this case into a moment of history; she dedicates her fight ‘to all the women and men across the world who have been victims of sexual violence.’ She echoes the fight of another emblematic Gisèle. In 1978, the human rights activist and lawyer Gisèle Halimi requested media coverage for the trial of three men accused of raping her client. She said at the time ‘It’s one thing for a man to commit rape but it’s another for him to want people in his village, at his workplace, or in the newspapers to know about it.’ Like Mrs Pelicot believes, the real issue of those trials was ‘fundamentally changing the relationships between men and women.’
Her power also stems from her unwavering commitment to a simple tenet of any democracy: accountability and justice. This case perfectly encapsulates society’s issue. The accused men appear to be a microcosm of society, exhibiting characteristics that would be considered standard by most onlookers. They are a gallery of working-class and middle-class French society: truck drivers, carpenters, trade workers, a nurse, an I.T. expert, and a local journalist. They range in age from 26 to 74, with many being fathers and in relationships. After hearing wives, girlfriends or friends in court claiming the accused did not seem capable of rape, Gisele stated: ‘We have to progress on rape culture in society … People should learn the definition of rape.’
Rapists are not ‘monsters’ lurking in the dark. More than two hundred men in public life have co-authored an opinion piece in Libération stating that male violence is not about ‘monsters’ but about ‘everyday ordinary man’. This trial is thus significantly shifting the attention from the victim to the offenders.
After viewing the horrific tapes, many were stunned. Serge Galvan, a member of the crowd, stated ‘I’m almost ashamed to be a man… We must give her as much strength as possible. It’s important for women.’ Mrs Pelicot is confronting a pervasive culture of rape in society. This remarkable and exemplary reversal, whereby a survivor of sexual assault is placing herself at the centre of her abuser’s trial, has already sparked meaningful debates about rape culture and consent. In a society that prides itself - and often hides behind - a relaxed attitude to sex, this trial is opening a broader conversation on the legal definition of rape. French Justice Minister Didier Migaud said he supported rewriting French law to explicitly include the currently absent notion of consent.
Addressing the court on Wednesday, one of the prosecutors stated, ‘With your verdict, you will declare ... that women are not doomed to suffer, and men are not doomed to perpetrate. And you will guide us in educating our sons.’ This is a reminder that we should not have to protect our daughters, but educate our sons. We cannot expect one woman to change rape culture overnight. It’s neither her duty or responsibility. Nor does she have the emotional capacity to do so. As Gisèle Pelicot put it ‘I am a woman who is totally destroyed, and don’t know how I can pick myself up from this.’