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.
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.