Rape victims usually 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. She is also elegantly offering the world a role model of the power of older women, how their mature truth-telling has no time for the judgement, embarrassment or cultural narratives imposed on younger women. Pelicot, at age 72, is giving the world a master class in female leadership – from the courthouse in Avignon in the south of France.
It’s all pretty unexpected. Pelicot’s sudden stretch from modest grandmother to resolute heroine was not a transformation of her own choosing. It was thrust upon her by crisis – and her long-time (and seemingly much beloved) husband. He turns out, just as unexpectedly, to have become the orchestrator of a decade-long gang rape in a case now capturing headlines across France.
A seemingly sedate husband and father-of-three for most of their 50-year marriage, the real Daniel Pelicot invited dozens of men into his home, recruited from online sites, to abuse his own wife, who he drugged and left comatose throughout the proceedings. Which he filmed for his own pleasure.
The abuse went on for a decade. While Gisèle Pelicot was oblivious to what was going on, and would have been unable to prove her case, as she wasn’t a witness to it, her husband busied himself taking over 20,000 videos and photos of the proceedings. They were found on his computer, in a folder labelled ‘abuse.’ They have become the central pillar of the case.
Fifty men are standing trial. They are self-described ‘good guys,’ fathers and husbands watching videos of themselves abusing a sleeping older lady – in public. Firefighters, journalists, students, truck drivers, prison guards, nurses, retirees, city councillors, aged 26 to 74. An unusual picture of the banality of abusive behaviour challenging ideas of rapists as rare and slightly monstrous exceptions.
Daniel Pelicot, the central defendant in this widely watched case, has admitted to being guilty of rape. Of the 83 men identified in his videos, the police were only able to identify 50. Of these, only 15 have admitted rape, the others arguing they were just taking part in sexual acts, and the uncomprehending victims of Pelicot’s plans.
In a culture that prides itself – and often hides behind – its sophisticated and relaxed attitudes 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.
Not Your Average Heroine
Gisèle Pelicot is not your typical heroine figure. A petite, unassuming woman, wife, mother and grandmother, she was married for 50 years, to a man she seems to have loved. Her divorce went through the day the trial began.
This astonishing case has become a national teachable moment in France – and internationally – where rape and domestic abuse are a skyrocketing threat. While much of the focus is on the depravity of the perpetrators involved, on graphic display in a trial that continues through December, the lasting lessons may be the powerful leadership that are making this case – and this woman – echo around the world.
Gisèle Pelicot has taught us three things that every man and woman could learn from:
1. Courage:
First, Pelicot’s courage in ensuring that shame shifts sides. For too long, rape victims have lived the trauma of abuse in silence, taking shame onto their own shoulders.
Unusually in this case compared to many other #MeToo moments, this is a story of one woman up against 50 men. More common is to see several women making their case against a single perpetrator. It takes courage to stand up against such an onslaught in a tiny village where everyone knows everyone. And to refuse to accept any embarrassment or shame. To look her assailants in the eye, day after day, on stage in front of a now-global public.
Her age probably helps. Maturity gifts the ability to care less about what others think, and more about how an individual’s intrinsic value system guides them. Pelicot’s adult children are able to support her, and are visibly at her side. Pelicot has dedicated her efforts to “all the victims of sexual abuse.” She is determined to give forward and repurpose her terrible tale in service of others.
2. Transparency
Usually the names of victims aren’t published in the press. Pelicot has refused the anonymity of most rape cases and invited the world in as witness. She fought to have the videos her former husband carefully recorded shown in court, refusing to be embarrassed by the sordidness of actions she had no part in designing. She wanted it all out in public as testimony to what goes on, as a lesson in dangerous intimate abuse, and a powerful rebuke to those who minimise or trivialise the meaning of consent. The impact of this transparency is likely to influence the law.
Many other women will learn from her methods – and the power she derives from it.
3. Accountability
Finally, Pelicot’s power also comes from her unwavering commitment to a simple tenet dear to any meritocracy: accountability. The majority of the men in the dock are arguing they ‘didn’t know,’ they ‘thought she was consenting,’ they hadn’t ‘come to rape.’ The trial is being written about around the world as one (drugged) woman’s brave demand for accountability from 50 men for their own (filmed) behaviour.
Gisèle Pelicot’s courage has allowed this case to explode into a public court proceeding with national repercussions. Her insistence on transparency has helped educate and inform a conversation around consent. And her demand for accountability is inviting men to own what they’ve done. May we all learn from these lessons.