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.
Came here to see discussions about the truly insane case mentioned in the article. Actually found an entire comment section full of ‘not all men’ vs ‘basically all men’ threads
The internet loves to argue with a generalization that is only true 9,999 times out of ten thousand.
Imagine being the victim of a female pedophile and seeing that sign
My heart breaks for her. I’m glad she gets to see the support of those around her while going through this. And Jesus fuck, how can you even do that to someone? I just cannot wrap my mind of being able to hurt someone like that, and then to keep doing that, and just go on living life. I’m not religious, but I hope that man burns in hell.
Husband aside, that’s 50 separate people who thought this was okay. Ffs
Allegedly, they didn’t. Multiple men were contacted through a swingers website, and allegedly led to believe she was a willing participant pretending to be asleep, instead of what she really was, the victim of a disgusting monster, drugged and undressed without her knowledge, for the pleasure of a sick monster.
To the point where one of her abusers, fully aware of what he did, wrote to her to apologize from jail, realizing what he had done under false pretenses, and aware that by not doing his due diligence, he raped her in the literal sense of the word.
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This is making me really angry. They knowingly and willingly had sex with her without getting her consent because they didn’t believe it was important enough. They had no problem with someone else speaking for her. This is part of what she is trying to bring attention to and you are pretending these men are victims. I am disgusted. Due diligence? Really? This is rape not a fucking business transaction. The fact that they could be so careless about her bodily autonomy and need no consent from her is damning of them and of you for defending them. Fuck everything about this.
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I would hope that one that would be interested in this type of stuff would be meeting the affected party first :/
So would I, and I also wish nobody did meth. A lot of dangerous things have been normalized by many people, to the point where they get so used to them, that they seem normal and relatively harmless to them, only because their “normal” is so fucking far from the socially acceptable normal.
Because he said it was their kink to them.
50 codefendants in a case against one woman? How horrific.
Thank you to the French women doing this. However, since this is France, my biggest worry is this will be shot down with a big red flag/note saying:
How can we fix this when the government keeps protecting the real rapists: minorities
Yeah Western Europe culturally not looking too clever these days re right wing shit. Not that America is doing any better mind.
Whole world is looking quite pathetic right now.
Terrible fucking sign and tone deaf af
Women made up 89% of rape victims, while 96% of sexual violence perpetrators were men.
Ok, so not so men but 96% of perpetrators are men.
This very precise statistic comes from a single study made in bad faith, over 20 years ago. If you want to read a more recent study, with linked sources, feel free to check https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sexual-victimization-by-women-is-more-common-than-previously-known/
That percentage came from the 2021 report by the French government. This is not outdated information. And it’s pertains to France not America.
Dude just shut the fuck up about that study xD most rape is done by men towards women, quit acting like that’s just not the case. Women deserve to not be raped, can you just say that with no qualifiers?
I would prefer to say, nobody deserves to be raped, and as long as people keep giving that flawed statistic that harms both male and female victims of rape, I have no reason not to share it.
That kind of disregard is what keeps most female child rapists out of jail, or nets them far lesser sentences.
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actually decent men are aware that they are complicit by their very existence as men under the patriarchy
Could you fucking imagine saying this about any other group of people
Sure can. There’s a lot of “blaming citizens of countries for things they have no say in” nowadays
Reported.
imagine taking this story, about where a woman was systematically drugged and raped for OVER 10 YEARS, and going “ah yes but what about the men?!?”. I truly feel for the men in the comments sharing their stories, and I hope they continue to share and raise awareness, but Jesus y’all not the time
Take your own fucking advice. If men talking about their own rapes triggers you so, then you are the same crap you are crying about. You are sexist beyond belief.
It’s never the fucking time for male abuse victims to speak up and tell their stories, we’re always told to shut up and deal with it.
I’s never the fucking time for male abuse victims to speak up and tell their stories
It’s never time to break the status quo, even if it means liberation for those considered in minority groups (in this case people assaulted by women vs people assaulted by men). I’m paraphrasing a MLK article passed around a few weeks ago.
In his letter sent from jail, King went on to criticize white moderates. He said that a white moderate is someone “who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.” Such a person is, according to King, someone “who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”
RIP MLK. All the love
If he were alive and protesting today you’d be whining about how white lives matter too and he’s a racist asshole who thinks white people deserve to be lynched. Fuck off
Who are you referring to here? A specific person or Americans in general?
The person I’m replying to, though tbf I don’t actually know if they’re racist like that, but they and a lot of people in this comment section are speaking out against this protest about a woman who got raped constantly and rape culture against women and trying to make it about the issues men face. it’s all very “I’m white and i got harassed by a cop, so this protest about police shooting a black child should be about me too”
I was molested by a woman as a child. That sign just makes me see red, I’m sorry if my trauma and triggers are inconveniently timed for you
Yeah exactly. I’m a man who was assaulted as a kid by a woman. Shit happens. But looking at what shit happens most often - it’s sexual violence perpetrated by men against women.
I don’t know how we change that. Maybe by continuing to level up the power dynamic between men and women, I feel like we’ve been making some progress with that over the past century. Finally. But it’s more than that, there are too many idiot arseholes who think they can have anything their fists can beat down. Almost all of them are men.
Pretty much every girlfriend and female friend I’ve ever had has had bad experiences with men. Women I have cared about over the years have had experiences across the spectrum from cat calling and comments back when they were kids in school uniforms all the way through to stranger rape. Domestic violence isn’t uncommon either.
I dunno, I wish I had a solution. It fuckin breaks my heart - when a close friend or a partner opens up about what happened to her and there’s nothing you can do, it’s years too late, you have these thoughts like if I’d been there I could have stopped it- but it happened years ago and you are fuckin helpless to do anything except maybe hug her if she’s comfortable with that, or if not try to tell her it’s over, she’s safe and stronger now, whatever you think might help.
You don’t realise how harmful sexual assault is until you’ve been unable to help someone you love. The key word isn’t ‘sexual’, it’s ‘assault’.
Shit like that makes me fuckin ashamed to be a bloke. I don’t know how we fix this, but I’ve got two suggestions for a good start - firstly, we don’t do that shit. Never, there’s never an excuse. Secondly, we fuckin shut down other guys, even if they’re our mates, if they start with that sort of talk.
Yeah, there’s wrong uns in whatever gender. But in terms of atrocity it’s us men well in the lead. We gotta change that. I think we can at least fuckin try.
thanks for being one of the reasonable ones in this comment section lol. and it seems you’re doing a pretty good job of trying to enact change. keep it up, it’s a team effort :)
sorry to hear about your story as well, hope everything is going well for you now.
Cheers, yeah I’ve kinda grown into my own shit. It’s caused me a lot of problems over the years, but I’m getting old now and I’m okay with stuff.
I’m just saying that anyone can get hurt like that, but it’s mostly women getting hurt and it’s mostly men doing the hurting. We’ve got to fuckin stop doing that because it is profoundly wrong.
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no that’s not true at all. you’re supposed to talk about it, to share your stories, to go to therapy, support groups. to make online spaces to discuss and heal and grow. same as women. unfortunately, the only time I ever see men share their stories is when it takes away from a women’s experience, which is disgusting as has been happening more and more on this app.
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It literally does matter when you talk. If BLM groups only ever protested when there was another protest they could hijack that would garbage. Stop talking over other victims if you actually give a shit. Doing what you and arcaneslime and a bunch of other m*n here are doing has the same effect as going to a BLM protest with All Lives Matter signs
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Removed, civility.
If it weren’t for that “but always a man”, there would be no issue. Celebrating “but always a man” is the issue driving objections here.
The problem is the sign in the thumbnail. It sure as good god fuck is not always men and you’re a disgusting liar to claim that.
jesus man, not everything is about you. sure, not all men are sexual predators. easy enough to agree on. but the point is that all men have had opportunities to call their peers out on creepy behavior, whether it’s catcalling, looking down on women, sexualizing them, etc. and failed. each of these 50 plus men in this story could’ve reported this as odd, or talked to the women and made sure she was ok, or hung around until the drugs wore off to double check, and didn’t. each of them were given an opportunity and they took full advantage of it and of her. so yeah. all men have failed women at some point, and each of your MANY comments in this thread are honestly just another example of that, taking away from this poor women’s story to wage your personal crusade.
It’s the same argument people made during the black lives movement by saying all lives matter. Of course all lives matter, but right now we are talking about black lives cause they are the ones hurting. Woman are the overwhelming majority of sexual abuse victims. We are talking about them right now. I say this as a male who was a victim of abuse by an older woman.
It’s not the story in general, it’s the “but always a man” that’s objectionable.
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This 100%. If men being raped is such a massive issue to yall, make your own protest about it, don’t shit on the protests of marginalized people bc they’re fighting for their own rights and not yours
guys always is an embellishment. it’s almost funny that not all men became not always men. obviously not always men but if you think the numbers are comparable you’re living in a fantasy land.
The numbers are also suppressed for men because we are not believed or taken seriously whereas women are typically believed by default.
I mean even considering that. if we magically learned the real numbers today there should still be a grand canyon between them. if you think it’s any close you’re either fooling yourself or biased by personal trauma.
just as a note: the argument I’m making is not based on any essential characteristics of men vs women. I’m not arguing men are biologically coded to SA more or whatever. it’s about societal conditions. conditions which, by the way, contribute to the problem you’re talking about.
What ratio do you think has any meaning? What if the meaning is just that men have a higher “success rate” for just being better at it or even just being scarier. What if it just means men are more often consenting where they otherwise shouldn’t be?
I don’t remember calling anything meaningless so I don’t get your first question.
also if men have a better success rate that makes them more of a problem, don’t really get what the argument is there
also don’t understand what you mean consenting where they shouldn’t be. you either consent or don’t. if you’re alluding to coercion that’s not consent and it shouldn’t be named as such. otherwise I don’t get what you mean at all.
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I’m not one of them, but the problem is the sign in the thumbnail. Without that I doubt it would’ve upset as many people.
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I didn’t even look at the thumbnail. I’m a man btw. If I had to rewrite that sign it might say ‘NOT ALL MEN - JUST TOO MANY’. Or, I dunno, something like that.
I kinda feel like, for blokes there are two important things we can do. Aside from stop having arguments about who’s the bigger victim (it’s women). First is just don’t do that shit. Just don’t. It’s actually easy and rewarding to not be a bad person. Second is don’t let any other guys get away with even talking like that. Even if they’re mates, step the fuck up and let them know that talk is not okay. Let’s be honest, many of us have heard our mates talk about women in a way we weren’t quite comfy with and afterwards thought we should have said something. Say something.
If she held up a sign holding “all gays should die” would that be enough to talk about? A protest for a good cause is not a free pass to spread untruths. There are some men in this thread who were actually raped and you rail against them for sharing their story. The trial still goes on, it’s not like people here are in favor of the rapists?
To use your inflammatory language: it’s unbelievably stupid and fragile to believe you get to direct the contents of the topic. Let the adults talk
Imagine I’m selling a nice camera tripod but in the commercial people are beating each other to death with it. You walk into a Lemmy post about it and people are only talking about the ridiculous commercial. You gonna stand up and be like “Why isn’t anyone talking about the product!?” like that’s the real topic?
We’re not in here talking about what happened. We’re talking about the news. The news is saying my half of the population is bad because of their story which I’m half a world away from and have no reason to believe.
terminally online men try not to take a picture of a random sign in an otherwise unrelated article personally challenge (impossible)
Reading is fucking hard I guess
Fuck off. I was abused by my mother. She looks like the kind of trash that would holf a sign like that.
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The heck you mean “close enough”, 4% is not within margin of error, and even then this is a grave accusation to lump on an entire demographic.
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I can refute gravity. What of it?
Dafq is wrong with you. You just chose to ignore and invalidate a horrible experience of thousands, if not millions, just to defend a random person’s Sign? Maybe take a step back and think again.
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Removed for civility and tenp banned for blaming a rape victim.
Certainly close enough says the expert. And then someone in the other thread explains how the legal definition is so fkd up it essentially excludes male victims. Tell me about real sexism here.
But you know what? It shouldn’t fuckin matter either way, because if it does to you, you’re the problem.
Removed, civility.
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Yeah I also saw the similarly to ALM in the comments of this post.
Yes, women also abuse men (and also other women), but the vast majority of cases that appear before a judge involve men as the perpetrators. I’d want to tackle the big problems first if I have to prioritize cultural (and sexual) progress of a society.
But I also recognize bias exists at pretty much every level of this process, inside or outside of a courtroom. I think we should still value evidence over hearsay, as was demonstrated in a case like Depp v. Heard, yet show compassion for victims because they need to feel safe to speak up, no matter the gender.
Where is all this passion for male victims of rape when people aren’t protesting the rape of a woman or women in general?
This is a rhetorical question
Fuck off. I was abused by my mother. Down voted by the woke for not being abused by a man. Typical.
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USA Today - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for USA Today:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceMods, I know you’re in this thread, why haven’t you banned this paid advertisement spam bot that nobody wants?
Some of us find it useful, although a bit excessive sometimes, not a mod here, just a random user who likes looking at the biases so I don’t waste my time on articles to what could easily be equated to “MAGA.com” at a glance, instead of actively having to go look for resources.
Please be aware that the ratings are literally just based on the feelings of one dude. He wraps it up in pseudo-scientific rigor to try to give himself more authority but it’s still just one dude’s opinion, and he tends to be pretty conservative/MAGA-y.
Oh, that is something I was not aware of, which is important information. I thought it was crowd sourced and fact checked. I hate disingenuous stuff.
Thank you, I truly had no idea.
