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.
Where is all this passion for male victims of rape when people aren’t protesting the rape of a woman or women in general?
This is a rhetorical question
Fuck off. I was abused by my mother. She looks like the kind of trash that would holf a sign like that.
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?
Instead of thinking of it as competition, think of it as people simply reminding others that “all rape is bad” or “all hate crimes are bad”.
Thats like saying all lives matter specifically after an African American gets brutally killed by a cop. Obviously all lives matter but its simply not the time nor place when the conversation was about hate crime against African Americans. In this case its absolutely distasteful to say “all rape is bad” when the topic is specifically about a female victim and a male perpetrator.
For an exercise, check out other articles posted about Gisele’s case, and look for comments about male victims. Most people just post in support of her, or in hatred of her abusers.
The reason why this conversation exploded on the topic was the picture chosen for it. It is meant to be divisive, drive engagement and thus, ad revenue.
We’re all being farmed for engagement, which takes away from what is important, seeking justice without looking at genders.
That picture is very triggering to the many, many victims of rape with female perpetrators, especially if the victims are male, hence the outrage.
Yeah but I find it funny that those same people who say “well its not always a man” very often also say “well x is a minority therefore they shouldn’t receive any representation whatsoever”. In addition I would personally argue that most people here claiming to be victims are most likely lying (who knew people on the Internet could lie).
You’re either trolling, or too far gone. I am saying “It is not always a man”, and I would never keep representation away from someone just for being a minority, or associate with people who behave like that.
And honestly, I find it appalling, that you jump to assume people claiming to have been raped here are most likely lying, and wonder if you would say that to a woman who claims to have been raped.
And if for you, that hinges on gender alone, you would have to be either extremely thick, or simply arguing in bad faith to ignore how sexist that is.
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?
Fuck off. I was abused by my mother. Down voted by the woke for not being abused by a man. Typical.
My mom molested me when I was a child. Not always a man, and fuck that bitch for trying to pretend it’s so.
She was likely raped (by a male, perhaps her father?) much like you were by your mother. It’s very callous to refer to her as a bitch because a sign. Women aren’t attending these protests because they find them fun. They are victims like you.
Funny how you jump into assumptions and justifications for her without knowing a thing about her other than her gender and the signpost she has, yet wag your finger at another victim for having a reaction to a message invalidating a ton of rape victims, and also lumping them in the same group as their abuser, as if it was an inherent, genderlocked flaw.
If you don’t see that as a double standard, then you should really read my last paragraph again and reevaluate your biases.
I think you might have some biases of your own. You are accusing me of the very thing you are guilty of too. Maybe we can at least agree its awful to be raped by people?
Ok I was always abused by multiple women, time to make a sign thay says always a woman
It’s just exactly like the people who saw “black lives matter” and thought they meant only black lives matter. They see the sign saying “not all men but always men” and ignored the first part and focused on the second part. Then proceeded to ignore the actual subject of the article (you know, the woman who was continually raped without her knowledge or consent for over 10 years by 50 or possibly more men and the fact that the defense is arguing that “maybe she secretly knew and liked it”). And are completely focused on being outraged by the sign.
So if I make a sign that says “not all women but always a woman” because so far, both times I’ve been raped are by women, there wouldn’t be an uproar about how it’s sexist and excludes woman victims of male abusers?
Why should I be cast aside, lumped in with the “always a man” crowd as an abuser, while the women who abused me are lauded as victims? Why not just care about all victims of abuse? Why do we say “well you’re only 4% so you don’t matter” or “sit down and shut up we’re not talking about you” whenever male victims just want to be fucking included in the conversation and not forgotten about for once, and by the group that should be recognizing us as compatriots in our trauma at that?
She doesn’t have to put us down to make herself feel better and we’re rightfully angry that it happened again.
Yeah, a uni I went to had a sexual assault course everyone had to take, and the thing that stuck out was that the statistics on women were horrible, but the statistics on men being raped was not statistically far behind. It was something awful like three men in a classroom of 30 would have been victims of rape. On average.
The worst part is that a friend of a friend was actually held down and raped in a hotel by three people in the hallway. But he was so scared of being perceived as gay, he refused to talk to the police, his family, or get PEP for possible STD exposure. Men don’t feel like they can come forward for male rape because they will be perceived as gay, and they won’t report being raped by women because it’s seen as being weak. Fucking horrible, and then the rapists get away and continually abuse people until someone finally breaks the chain. :(
Since you are in a thread that’s about a women who has been victimized for 10 years by her own husband who she trusted and believed loved her, and raped by 50 plus men at his hand, I want to say, that many, many females also don’t come forward because they know they won’t be believed. They will also be perceived as weak, or whatever excuse rape apologists give. They asked for it. They dressed like a slut. They were walking too late at night alone. They drank too much and passed out which made them fair game.
It happened to my sister, my brother, my mother, my friends, it’s happened to me, it’s happened to about 13 other females off the top of my head that I know throughout my life.
It isn’t only because a male will be perceived as gay that they don’t come forward. That’s a byproduct of homophobia. They don’t come forward for many of the same reasons females don’t come forward. They believe it’s their fault., and they don’t think other people will believe them. And also possibly they want to try to forget it ever happened, because it’s so traumatic.
It’s because other people don’t want to see the truth, and that truth is that human beings are for the most part garbage. We want to pretend this awful crap doesn’t happen on a regular basis but it does. It’s not an outlier or abnormal, it’s a fact of life for nearly most women and some men. It would be nice if no one could experience this.
