I wrote this for the newsletter but also want it to live on the blog for those who do not subscribe…
In the future, when we speak of Gisèle Pelicot, because we will, we always will, I hope it is with reverence and a sense of gratitude. I hope we accord her the respect she deserves and remember her for the war she fought for us, for women and society at large. A war not of her choosing to fight.
To understand what happened across the Channel, we must acquaint ourselves with the history of our own land.
Until 1991, in England, a man could not be found guilty of raping his wife. Let that sink in. The earliest legal text of marital rape was in a treatise called History of the Pleas of the Crown, published in 1736 by Sir Matthew Hale, a former Chief Justice of the Court of the King’s Bench and in it he stated:
“The husband of a woman cannot himself be guilty of an actual rape upon his wife on account of the matrimonial consent which she has given, and which she cannot retract.”
And in 1822, John Frederick Archbold a legal writer reiterated Hale’s point when he published Pleading and Evidence in Criminal Cases, stating that, a husband cannot be guilty of a rape upon his wife. The reasoning in both texts relied on assumed consent by deed of marriage where a wife had consented to her husband enforcing conjugal rights on her without it constituting an offence.
This was perfectly legal in England until 1991, when in the case of R v R, a husband was convicted of attempting to rape his wife. He would challenge the decision on appeal citing the marital rape exemption as provided by both Hale and Archbold. Upon review of the case and the citation of the marital rape texts used in R’s defence, the House of Lords unanimously agreed to uphold his conviction and to overturn the archaic and, quite frankly, barbaric texts from Hale and Archbold.
Lord Emsile, in his ruling stated, “Nowadays, it cannot seriously be maintained that by marriage, a wife submits herself irrevocably to sexual intercourse in all circumstances.” I would add, that it ever was, is acrimonious for a start, and a crime against women as sanctioned by the state. But there is a reason I am not in charge of the world.
It’s the language and the optics you see, words such as “matrimonial consent” willing thrown around to justify the subjugation of women. The weaponisation of a woman’s perceived duties upon marriage, language used by men, in laws made by men, and enforced upon women. I’ve always been of the opinion that language matters; in every context, language matters because it gives meaning and credence for hate to pervade society. It gives definition and acceptance to hate and justification to the injustices defined by language. Therefore, when you put this in the context of what Gisèle Pelicot’s husband did to her, it fails to surprise most women and yet, yet it utterly confounds us that this was done to her. It didn’t just happen, it wasn’t happenstance, her husband took an active decision in perpetuating this crime on his wife via the use of an online chatroom where men depraved as him go to hangout.
I hope that as we remember Madame Pelicot’s decision to forego anonymity, it changes the landscape of the language we use when talking about violent assault by men against women. Because when society talks about rape victims, it does so with grave cynicism afforded it by language; before accepting the version of account by a woman when it comes to rape or violent and sexual abuse of any kind at the hands of a man, there is the expectation that a victim ought to be perfect and must have adhered to certain “guidelines” as it were.
Her skirt cannot be too short.
Her dress cannot be too tight,
She must have on no make-up.
She must not be outside after dark.
She should be in possession of a weapon of some sort to stop her attacker.
She should flag a bus down if she feels a threat of imminent attack; that one was talked up by the government at one point.
Because the onus of stopping her attack is placed on the woman by society, and not on the man himself because language of the law from centuries past still pervades society so the man ought not to be a decent human being, the woman must be perfect and that includes assuming responsibility for avoiding her attack. Otherwise, her assault will be her fault. This is not a rare occurrence, we have heard of situations where the length of a woman’s skirt is called into question, the time she is making her way home from a night out, whether she consumed alcohol… and the plethora of excuses society makes in order to accommodate a man’s piss poor behaviour.
So, here is Madame Pelicot; a wife, a mother, an ordinary member of society married to her attacker for over fifty years and for nearly a decade of those years he drugged her, raped her and invited other men into their home to rape and sexually assault his unconscious wife as he watched and filmed it.
Gisèle Pelicot did not have to leave her home.
Her skirt did not have to be too short.
She did not consume any alcohol.
She was not making her way home after dark.
Her attacker was meant to be the one person she could trust the most, her husband of so many years, the man with whom she has a family, children who have gone on to become parents to their own children.
There you have it, in the sanctuary of her home, in the presumed safety of her partner’s company, a woman cannot be safe.
News of this case started to filter through in the latter half of the year, despite the investigation having started in 2020 when Dominique Pelicot was arrested for upskirting at a supermarket in Carpentras near Mazan where they lived. It was hard to fathom that this was a true story and not some sort of wild story conjured up in the recesses of social media overhyped by the TikTok detectives. It seemed unbelievable until a name was ascribed to the victim and then we all paid attention. Gisèle Pelicot had refused the anonymity afforded to her by the courts in France because, to them, I am certain, this case was as unbelievable, as it was to us. But in one of the most distinguished acts of bravery, she decided that “shame must swap sides”, that this was too big a moment in her life to be made to feel ashamed of; for something she did not do but was done to her.
Gisèle Pelicot has become a name with which we are all now very well acquainted. Each day, we would tune in to see her make the journey to and from the courthouse in Avignon, where she would relive the most harrowing moments of her life, hear details of the ghastly crimes committed against her; perpetuated not only by her husband but also the strangers he invited into their home. She would be surrounded by these men in court. Men, many men from many works of life, so yes, all men, because the benefactors of a system that seeks to dominate and subjugate women, relegating us to second class citizens almost, with the language of the law, are men.
A butcher,
A baker,
A builder,
A community nurse,
A pensioner,
A journalist,
A vineyard worker,
A video shop owner,
A transport worker,
An heir to a building firm,
A roofer,
A computer expert,
A forklift driver,
A soldier,
A refrigeration expert,
A carer,
A farm worker,
A carpenter,
A tiler…
And the list goes on to include many men.
Madame Pelicot is a grandmother, a mother, a mother-in-law…and writing those attributes feels like a quantification of who she is as a victim of the ghastly crime, as if ascribing these qualities to the next victim on a check list. Even with words such as “brave” and “distinguished” as earlier used, it suggests a victim must possess such qualities to be believed and it ought not be this way. A woman need not be brave to be believed.
She need not be courageous to be heard.
She need not be distinguished to be taken seriously.
Her humanity need not be diminished or even justified. That she is a grandmother or a mother or a sister or a daughter is not a quantifier, they are but stages of a woman’s life. And yet, this is the way in which society would seek to justify its ideals when it comes to victim profile.
Who is the perfect victim?
As the trial progressed, there was another noticeable change, Madame Pelicot started to attend court without her sunglasses, a conscious decision as noted by one of her lawyers Stephane Babonneau, who states that his client “no longer needed to protect herself.” Even after she’d waived anonymity, she cloaked herself in a protection from the world by shielding her eyes with sunglasses, protecting the intimacy of them, a grasp unto some sort of privacy as had not been afforded her in her home, until she decided to go without them. The world should see her and know that she is not afraid to be seen or to look it in the eye, further removing another layer of shame that society would seek to ascribe to her and other rape victims. The shame that comes with the anonymity the courts sought to provide her with.
I shall never forget the startling look from bright eyes that regarded the world as she lived through this ordeal. Startling eyes that hold so much truth and pain. A truth seared into our consciousness. Discarding the sunglasses with which she used to shield her eyes told of a steely determination and a refusal to back down. Madame Pelicot refused to allow society to shame her in the way it can be so cruel and unjust to women who have been attacked by men. Shame them to walk with heads bowed, shoulders hunched and eyes to the ground, because society blames them rather than their attackers. This shame is embedded in society at every level from the church to the back of the bus. Institutions that will provide escape and excuse for perpetrators and assign shame to the victims. The shaming of the victim is endemic throughout our history, especially in sex crimes. Institutions deprive women of sexual agency; there is always some sort of debate with regards contraception in the Catholic Church which is still frowned upon in certain corners of the church, consigning women to a lifetime of giving birth to and raising of children, a life tethered to the home. There is also the everlasting conflict between choice and life, regardless of circumstance, even rape, that would negate a woman’s rights even further, cloaking it in shame.
With the removal of her sunglasses, Madame Pelicot put that shame back on her attackers and abusers. She refused to look away, and in so doing dared the world to look away. We couldn’t, we simply couldn’t. Instead, we watched alongside her, we listened, we cheered her on as she arrived and departed the courthouse every day.
Merci Madame Pelicot.
I hope when we talk about Gisèle Pelicot in the future, when we write about her, when we think about her, it is with profound respect.
I hope we think of her often in our prayers and say a prayer for her.
I hope we remember her humanity.
I hope we never have to speak of her in the context of the crimes against her for too long a time. For we will for some time.
I hope we speak of her valour.
I hope we never look away when a victim needs us to look at them, hear them and believe them.
I hope society is a better place where blame and shame are for the attacker to bear.
Merci Madam Pelicot, person of the century, of our lifetime, and many more to come, because TIME got this one so wrong in its choice for person of the year, but then again, when has the media gotten it right of late?
Gisèle Pelicot, I would imagine, would have been just fine living her version of a peaceful life; a quiet life in a small commune in France where the breaking global news story had nothing to do with her, yet at the hands of her husband and his fifty cohorts, much of her life has become a defining moment the world over. Hers is a name that will be in the history books not because she wanted it to, not because she set out to become an extraordinary person, that she is, is a bonus to us, but simply because the world owes her too much for this defining moment.
I hope we afford Gisèle Pelicot some peace and privacy, and space to heal as we hold space for her in our hearts and in our homes.
Un Grand Merci, Madame Pelicot.