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'We are all Gisèle': French women rise up against 'rape culture' during Gisèle Pelicot trial (www.usatoday.com)
submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (35 children)

And yet, what no-one wants to face is the fact that women rape men as frequently as men rape women:

And now the real surprise: when asked about experiences in the last 12 months, men reported being “made to penetrate”—either by physical force or due to intoxication—at virtually the same rates as women reported rape (both 1.1 percent in 2010, and 1.7 and 1.6 respectively in 2011).

In other words, if being made to penetrate someone was counted as rape—and why shouldn’t it be?—then the headlines could have focused on a truly sensational CDC finding: that women rape men as often as men rape women.

I mean, yes - let’s lock up convicted rapists. But if 50%of cross-gender rapists are women yet almost 100% of convicted rapists are men, there’s some seriously weapons-grade gender bigotry at play, there.

A legal system that is truly based on equality should see about a 50/50 split of male/female rapists convicted, and for largely equal time served as well.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The share may differ - I'm not aware of it being equal and you bring up interesting stats right there - but regardless, men can absolutely be victims of all kinds of abuse, and we have to treat it seriously.

Yes, men forced to do what they don't like or coerced to have sex is rape, and same for women.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Some American jurisdictions can’t even properly report a male victim of rape or sexual assault because their software is hard-coded to assign the victim as female and the perp as male.

Plus, the vast majority of men have been brainwashed into thinking that it is impossible for a woman to rape a man. So many of them don’t even see their rape as a rape, and frequently blame themselves.

And for the cherry on top, male rape victims can and frequently are forced to pay child support to their rapist if a child is conceived, thereby further traumatizing them. This happens even if the male victim was a minor - upon their 18th birthday they are hit with tens of thousands in arrears, and face jail time if they cannot immediately begin paying. Imagine - jailing a rape victim for the product of their rape!!

Think of how this would go down if the genders were swapped, and then ask yourself: why isn’t it going down like that as it currently is?

Because men don’t matter. Because men are trivially disposable. Because if men cannot provide something of value, they are worse than useless: they are a threat to society and need to be violently coerced into being useful. It’s why so many men are saying, “thanks, but no thanks” to the various “traditional” societal expectations of them (career, marriage, and even relationships entirely), and are going their own way. And I don’t blame them one bit.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

I follow you, until the last part.

"Men don't matter", "women don't matter" - those statements often seem to imply that the other gender is dominant and treats the other as disposable. This is not true - both men and women heavily suffer from bias, discrimination, and abuse - both in their own ways.

Traditional expectations hurt everybody, men and women, and should be thrown out the window. This includes a traditional concept that men are always perpetrators but not victims of abuse, among other things - something that is still commonly ignored, sometimes out of genuine ignorance, sometimes in bad faith.

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[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 month ago (8 children)

I find it incredibly interesting that male victims are exclusively brought up in conversations about female victims, just as hate crimes against white people are exclusively brought up in conversations about hate crimes against African Americans, or how hate crimes against Christians are exclusively brought up in conversations about hate crimes against Jews and Muslims. If you use the pain of a group as a form of whataboutism then fundementally you do not care about their suffering, what you are doing is creating a competition that nobody will win. After you're finished using your group against another group do you truly care about them? I see many people here talking about male victims but how many people here support movements like mens liberation?

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah it's our fault we're upset about being lumped in with the "always men" abusers crowd while our rapists are lauded as "never abusers" on signage like this. How dare we be so uppity to engage our anger with that sign directly.

I'm literally in here saying "that sign is a lie and it makes me angry, as a male victim of woman rapists," we can talk about "stop raping men too" and "charge women for rape not just 'sexual assault' when they compel sex" later, right now we're talking about "don't erase us with signs like these, please fucking include us in the movement" and we probably won't stop doing that until it happens. Why must there be "I don't care about male victims" and "I don't care about woman victims" groups? Can't we just join forces as victims vs abuse?

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