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.
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
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.
Oh yes the ever ignored male rape victims who are indignant enough to speak up in the face of a sign like this aren’t included in “the one’s hurting” because you’re literally ignoring their screams for help from the movement that is ignoring them almost harder than the rest of the world at large, by literally lumping male victims in with abusers and woman abusers in with victims, and then turning around and pretending we’re the fucking problem for being mad about that.
It’s not enough I have to be raped by two different women, I have to be treated like an inhuman unfeeling monster simply because I have a wiener while I watch my literal abusers be praised for being the right gender, and then when I say “hey maybe don’t unfairly treat me as a pariah” I get told to sit down and shut up because “we’re not talking about you right now?” Well guess what? We certainly are talking about me now whether you like it or not. I’m sick of it if I’m being perfectly honest and I’m not going to let people pretend I’m culpable for the actions of others any longer, nor will I let them silence me and excuse my abusers with signs like these.
I’m sorry for the abuse you’ve experienced and for how dismissed you may feel. Your pain is valid, and it’s important that it’s acknowledged.
Regarding the woman’s sign, it contains a false statement. However, she is just one person making that claim. While there may be others who share her view, they are a minority and don’t represent the majority of the movement or the core issue. My point is that signs like hers can distract from the broader discussion—that the vast majority of sexual assault and abuse victims are women, and now is the time to raise awareness about that.
Of course, men like you and I have been abused by women as well, and it’s essential that all forms of abuse are recognized and addressed. We must advocate for all victims. But in this moment, let’s focus on standing behind the women who are survivors and show them our support.
This doesn’t quite work. In fact, I think it’s the opposite.
The way I heard it described, which really drove the point home, was that imagine you are at a table and the food is being passed around. Every time it gets to you, the food is passed right past you. Everyone has a full plate except you. You say “hey, I deserve my fair share!” and then some jamoke says “we all deserve our fair share.” It’s missing the point, because you currently aren’t getting your fair share, and your unique plight is being ignored.
The sign in the case here is diminishing the fact that there are victims of females. They aren’t saying “women are unique victims” here, they are saying “men are unique perpetrators.”
Without the sign, this conversation doesn’t happen. You should be on the side of everyone else here and should be saying “hey, keep your misandry to yourself, this is about female victims” but instead you’re arguing “we should just let blatant misandry slide right now because we are talking about a female victim of a man.” It would be like (as I said in another post) letting blatant racism in a protest slide because the perpetrator was black and the victim was white.
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.
Said as another absolute that you shouldn’t, as if PTSD doesn’t exist for men that do get raped but just not as frequently.
Yes it’s skewed but seriously try to avoid absolute statements like that cause it absolutely will push the same victim ignorance that we try to avoid with women comig forward and it will upset people.
Just say “most” or even the “average man”
Lol maybe if you’re a white guy in a middle class neighborhood below the age of 60 that doesn’t have any open indication of being queer or a ethnic/religious minority.
Men are much more likely to be a victim of every other violent crime besides rape.
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.
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.
Let me ask you a question.
If this were about a gang of black people committing some crime, and as a protest someone was carrying a sign that said “not all black people, but always a black person” would you be telling people it’s “not the time” to point out the obvious and blatant racism?
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.’”
