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.
My mom molested me when I was a child. Not always a man, and fuck that bitch for trying to pretend it’s so.
Yeah, a uni I went to had a sexual assault course everyone had to take, and the thing that stuck out was that the statistics on women were horrible, but the statistics on men being raped was not statistically far behind. It was something awful like three men in a classroom of 30 would have been victims of rape. On average.
The worst part is that a friend of a friend was actually held down and raped in a hotel by three people in the hallway. But he was so scared of being perceived as gay, he refused to talk to the police, his family, or get PEP for possible STD exposure. Men don’t feel like they can come forward for male rape because they will be perceived as gay, and they won’t report being raped by women because it’s seen as being weak. Fucking horrible, and then the rapists get away and continually abuse people until someone finally breaks the chain. :(