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.
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”.