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.
These statistics are more biased by our police not accepting the victims’ complaints than our justice’s definition, or also what we see as socially acceptable. That’s why these stats have risen so much in the recent years.
Heck our president met his wife when he was a minor and she was his school teacher, we have ex high government official mixed in incest stories…
As much as it’s false to say it’s always men, these numbers exist more as a reflection of our justice system and shouldn’t be used to infer stats on the society as a whole.