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.

    • @GreenKnight23
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      4 hours ago

      your argument is just like the racist douchebags that argue “all lives matter” when “black lives matter”.

      the case in this point is about a man raping a woman so, of course, the protests are about male sexual aggression.

      yes, people in general are trash and can be horrible to other people.

      yes, I’m calling you out for driving a what-about-wedge into the thread.

      yes, I would do the same thing to someone who would drive the same wedge if this case was about a woman raping a man.

      just because you can say it, doesn’t mean you should say it. there’s a time and place and all you do by whining about it here is desensitize people against female sexual aggression.

      want to make a difference? talk about the 1 out of 6 woman that are victims of rape. or how about the fact that 54% of the victims are between the ages of 18-34. let’s not forget that a rape occurs every 68 seconds(4 victims were raped in the time it took me to write this whole comment).

      • @[email protected]
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        -14 hours ago

        No. My argument is that all the stats about men being raped in the comments ignores that the protest sign is about women being raped. That is all.

    • @Regrettable_incident
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      -15 hours ago

      Why? Cos I’m pretty sure it’s going to be lower than the number committed by men.

      • @SulaymanF
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        65 hours ago

        Less than men is not the same as “always by men.” I think that’s what people take issue with.

        • @Regrettable_incident
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          24 hours ago

          Right, this story about a woman being drugged and raped repeatedly by strangers for years - and people are taking issue with the fuckin semantics on one sign in a crowd photo? Yeah, that’s the problem, right there.

          • @[email protected]
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            137 minutes ago

            Whoever put that specific image in the article embed did it specifically because they knew it would generate this type of argument among people and therefore increase traffic to the article. Y’all got baited.

          • @SulaymanF
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            148 minutes ago

            Well it’s certainly not helping matters.