Gisele Pelicot criticizes 'patriarchal society' in shocking rape case in France

Throughout the trial, the accused men said that they thought they were just participating in their husbands’ sexual games and that they were not aware that what they were doing was rape.

For more than two months, Gisele Pelicot was sitting in the courtroom A video taken by her husband, showing several men sexually harassing her, was played in front of the court.

He was sleeping throughout all these rapes.

Pelicot did not leave the courtroom while these films were being shown. In fact, he fought hard to have the videos shown to the public.

On Tuesday, Pelicot gave the closing argument in the trial of 51 men accused of raping her after her husband drugged her and invited the men into their homes to abuse her for almost a decade. The case swept France and other countries, sparking feminist protests and leading to a reckoning over the prevalence of rape and sexual violence.

Speaking outside the court throughout the hearing, Pelicot never hesitated to place full responsibility and shame on the accused rapists, inspiring the slogan “shame must change sides” adopted by feminist demonstrators. Closing remarks were no exception.

“It’s time for society to look at this macho, patriarchal society and change the way it views rape,” he said.

There were most of the defendants in the courtroom; men from different walks of life, professions and origins. They said throughout the hearing that they thought they were just participating in the husband’s sexual games and that they were not aware that what they were doing was rape.

Pelicot directly criticized their “cowardice”.

“When you entered the bedroom and saw a motionless body, at what point did you decide not to react? Why didn’t you leave immediately and notify the police?”

“For me this is a case of cowardice, there is no other way to describe it,” he said.

Violette Perrotte, director of Le Maison des Femmes, a French non-profit organisation, said the “lack of understanding of what abuse is” shows how an abuser can be “anyone”, or even someone who “doesn’t see themselves as an abuser”. The company operates health centers for women victims of violence.

“We always say that there is no one type of victim and one type of abuser of domestic violence,” he said. The trial “showed the diversity of people who are capable of abuse.”

‘Our family is devastated’

Gisele Pelicot believed she was happily married to her husband, Dominique Pelicot, until she contacted the police. He believed that the memory loss he had been experiencing for years and the worrying symptoms that led him to fear he had a brain tumor or Alzheimer’s and to visit many doctors were completely unrelated. The New York Times reported.

But the revelation came in 2020, after authorities caught her husband pulling up women’s skirts at a supermarket. Nearly 300 photos and videos of the woman being abused by 72 different men were found in the seized electronic equipment.

Dominique Pelicot connected with men on defunct anonymous chat site Coco.gg included in a string murders, rapes and assaults.

Dominique Pelicot claimed direct responsibility before the court weeks ago: “I am a rapist, like everyone else in this room,” he said.

But in his closing argument, Pelicot maintained that his father was innocent of abusing his daughters, who used the alias Caroline Darian, or their grandchildren, even though he had nude photos of Darian.

“You don’t even have the courage to tell the truth!” Darian shouted in the courtroom. “You will die in a lie. You are alone in the lie.”

“Our family was destroyed,” David Pelicot, one of his two brothers, said in court Monday. He said at the hearing that he expected the defendants, including his father, whom he called “that man”, to be punished “for the horror they inflicted on my mother”.

When his father interrupted his testimony to apologize, David Pelicot shouted “Never!” he replied.

“It’s been four years since I lost my father,” the couple’s other son, Florian Pelicot, told the court. She said she hoped the court would give her father a harsh sentence to encourage other rape victims to speak out.

Perrotte said he believed the trial would have some impact, such as emphasizing that most rapists are already known to their victims and that a “perfect victim” or “perfect crime” does not exist. For example, her organization now trains professionals in “docking,” the term used to describe drugging a rape victim.

“The patriarchy still has great days ahead, but this has definitely affected the way we view perpetrators,” he said.

Contributed by: Reuters

Throughout the trial, the accused men said that they thought they were just participating in their husbands’ sexual games and that they were not aware that what they were doing was rape.

‘Our family is devastated’

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