Why Gisèle Pelicot, at the center of France’s shocking mass rape trial, is being called a hero

WARNING: This article may impact people who have experienced sexual violence or know someone who has.

It is not unusual for Gisèle Pelicot to be greeted with applause as she walks through the courthouse in the southern French city of Avignon.

In the midst of a gruesome mass rape case against her husband and fifty other accused men, Pelicot, 72, becomes a feminist herothose thousands of marches, demonstrations and a push for legal reform to French rape law to include consent for the first time.

Dominique Pelicot, her husband, has admitted that over the past decade he invited dozens of strangers to their home to rape her after drugging her unconscious.

Gisèle Pelicot is praised for her courage, not only for surviving her ordeal, but also for renouncing her courage. right to anonymityand she calmness on the witness stand, where she insists it is the men – not her – who should be ashamed.

And now Pelicot has done just that taken the position for the second time in the trial, which began on september 2, her words have been shared across media and social platforms, with people online even filing a petition that she will be named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year or that she will receive the award Nobel Peace Prize.

Experts and advocates against sexual violence say yes change the discourse about rape, and Pelicot herself has said that she is “determined that things change in this society.”

“I have decided not to be ashamed. I have done nothing wrong. They are the ones who should be ashamed,” Pelicot said Wednesday.

This flips the script on the history of victim blaming and shaming often seen among sexual assault survivors, says Bailey Reid, CEO of Ottawa-based sexual assault prevention program The Spark Strategy.

“So often survivors feel like they should be ashamed of what happened to them and blame themselves in some way,” Reid told CBC News.

“By coming out and calling out the perpetrators, Gisèle Pelicot shifts the shame from the victim – where patriarchy and rape culture places the blame – to the perpetrators,” said Ummni Khan, associate professor at the Department of Law and Legal Studies from Carleton. University in Ottawa.

“Instead, she asserts her power as a survivor, as a hero even for the women in France and around the world.”

Men who apologized ‘tried to apologize’

In recent weeks, the court heard that Pelicot and her 50-year-old husband were living in a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence. In 2020, a security guard caught Dominique Pelicot taking photos of women’s skirts in a supermarket, prompting investigators to search his phone and computer.

They found thousands of photos and videos of men appearing to rape Pelicot in their home while she appeared unconscious. Police investigators found communications Dominique Pelicot sent on a messaging website often used by criminals, inviting men to sexually assault his wife.

Dominique Pelicot admitted his guilt and claims that the fifty men on trial next to him understood exactly what they were doing. The suspects range in age from 26 to 74 years old.

“She challenges the myths surrounding sexual violence, including the belief that you are safe at home and the idea that rapists are monstrous figures rather than neighbors and community members,” said Khan, who researches gender, sexuality and the law . “Her willingness to sit there and listen to the perpetrators try to make excuses shows incredible courage.”

Despite video evidence against them, at least 35 of the defendants have denied the rape allegations, claiming Dominique Pelicot tricked them into believing they were participating in a sex game or that his wife was feigning sleep. Only a few have admitted to raping Pelicot, and some have apologized – which she does not accept.

“By apologizing, they are trying to excuse themselves,” Pelicot said Wednesday.

She also testified about how “incredibly violent” it was for her that many of the suspects in the trial said they thought she consented to the rapes or that she was pretending to be asleep.

“For me they are rapists, they will remain rapists. Rape is rape… Of course, today I don’t feel responsible for anything. Today I am above all a victim… We need to make progress on rape culture in society.”

The confirmation of the husband makes the case unique

Tanya Couch, co-founder of advocacy group Survivor Safety Matters and a sexual assault survivor herself, told CBC News she agrees Pelicot is absolutely a hero and that making her story so public is an act of incredible vulnerability.

“Without her courageous and selfless act, we would not have this insight into how these ‘normal’ men behave behind closed doors,” said Couch, who lives in the Greater Toronto Area.

However, she emphasized that this kind of public support and action for Pelicot is not the experience of most survivors. Pelicot’s case has two factors that set it apart from most other sexual assault cases, she said: police evidence and her husband’s corroboration of her story.

“The baseline is that women are not believed,” Couch said.

Last year, French authorities registered 114,000 victims of sexual violence, including more than 25,000 reported rapes. But experts there say Most rapes go unreported due to a lack of tangible evidence: About 80 percent of women do not file charges, and 80 percent of those who do have their cases dismissed before it is investigated.

In Canada too, the majority of sexual crimes are not reported to the police. according to the Ministry of Justice. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of sexual crimes reported by police increased by 38 percent, notes Statistics Canada. In 2022, only 31 percent of sexual assault cases were resolved through charges or recommendations by police.

That year, 10,028 incidents of sexual assault were classified by police in Canada as “insufficient evidence to proceed with laying or recommending a charge,” representing 30 percent of all police-reported sexual assaults, according to a 2024 study. Statistics Canada report.

“The public is encouraged to support Gisèle as her husband confirmed his actions. “If he had said she consented, that she played along, as most men do when accused of sexual assault, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Couch said. “It would be another ‘he said, she said’ thing.”

Reid, from The Spark Strategy, said she believes every survivor of sexual violence is incredibly brave – whether they choose to tell anyone – and that while Pelicot’s messages challenging shame and stigma are powerful, it it is important to support and believe all survivors. .

“If we all started with that simple step, we could all be feminist heroes,” she said.

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