Gisele Pelicot is a hero.
Her husband, Dominique Pelicot, has recently admitted in a French court that he drugged her to sleep, raped her, and recruited dozens of men to come into their marital bed and rape her too, night after night, for a decade.
We know Dominique Pelicot’s name and the shocking details of the horrific crimes committed by him and his cohort of fellow rapists – most of them local to the quaint French town they lived in – because Gisele Pelicot bravely waived her right to anonymity in the trial, enabling the details of the case to be heard in public. She chose to go public with her story at an incredible cost and burden to herself because she wanted to make an example of her abusers and deter other men from committing similar crimes, thinking they can get away with them.
This admirable 72-year-old woman, who has been through unimaginable pain and suffering, went a step further last week and convinced the judge overseeing the case to make the video recordings of the rapes available to the public and the media.
Gisele Pelicot’s lawyers called the decision to make the footage public a “victory” and said, “If these same hearings, through their publicity, help prevent other women from having to go through this, then [Gisele Pelicot] will find meaning in her suffering.”
So yes, Gisele Pelicot is a modern day hero. By making sure the world knows who her husband is and what he did, she became a true feminist icon – a symbol not of victimhood but women’s resistance to male violence. She took a stand not only for herself but for all women, and she will long be remembered and respected for it.
The courage and bravery of Gisele Pelicot filled me with pride and renewed my trust in the strength of women and the power of sisterhood. But the image of her taking on her dozens of rapists alone also raised in my mind a haunting question: Where are the men? Where are the good men, the ones who love to say “not all men”? Why are they not doing something to make sure such horrific crimes do not happen again? How come they are not part of the conversation?
We often hear of women like Gisele Pelicot who bravely take action – often at incredible cost to her own wellbeing – to address male violence and hold violent men to account. Countless women – often victims of male violence themselves – sacrifice, speak up, advocate, resist, expose, protest to make sure the world is a less violent and more just place for other women. I’ve had the honour of knowing many such women over the years. Jill Saward, who survived the infamous “Ealing vicarage rape attack” in 1986, for example, dedicated her life to campaigning against male violence and helped change not only legislation but societal attitudes towards rape, rapists and victims of sexual violence in Britain.
How come we do not see men standing up against male violence like these brave women do?
Just look at the Pelicot case. We learned from the trial that Dominique Pelicot approached countless men to take part in the sadistic abuse of his wife. Dozens agreed. And the ones who said no chose to remain silent. Not a single one of those men had the moral clarity and courage to go public, expose what had been going on and take whatever heat that may come their way to make sure the abuse of Gisele Pelicot came to an end and no other woman is harmed by her rapists in the future. None of them even thought of reporting the abuse anonymously. Dominique Pelicot’s crimes were only discovered because he was spotted filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket and was arrested.
How come none of the men who had been offered to rape an unconscious woman felt it necessary to report what was happening to the police? How come none of them managed to do the bare minimum to end the horrific abuse of a woman?
I know there are men who would be ready to risk their reputations and even lives to put an end to the abuse and exploitation of women. I have personally met a few – such as my friend Robert Jensen, who tirelessly campaigns against pornography. But after a lifetime of feminist struggle, fighting against male violence in Britain and elsewhere, I can confidently say we can count such men on the fingers of one hand.
Sure, there are hundreds, if not thousands of bearded virtue signallers all over the world who attend women’s marches and wear T-shirts bearing the words “This is what a feminist looks like.” Men who – having insisted on their right to a seat at the table and to stand on the podium – expect gratitude and praise just for being a decent human being. But most of these men, when faced with an opportunity to make a difference, refuse to take any risks to help protect women. Their feminism disappears into thin air when supporting women requires them to briefly step out of their comfort zone and actually do something.
Today, as the trial of Dominique Pelicot and his fellow rapists continues to put the issue of male violence into international headlines, we should celebrate Gisele Pelicot as the true hero that she is. She is a woman who brought about real, material change. She is a woman of courage who gave up on the opportunity of having a quiet, anonymous life after being abused and betrayed by the man closest to her, just to help and protect other women. She is someone generations of girls will look up to and take inspiration from. But as we celebrate her, we should also remember to ask: Where are the men? Why is she the only one with courage? Why is she the only one bearing the cost of justice? Why has not a single man in this horrific case – a case that involves dozens and dozens of them – risen up to become an example for boys the way Gisele became an inspiration to girls? Why has not even a single one of them stood up to expose the crime and fight for the victim?
If we are to make sure what happened to Gisele does not happen to other women, we need men to stand up, speak up and point a finger at the rapists, wife beaters and murderers of women among them. We need men – and more than just a select few of them – to be real feminists, ready to take personal risks to put an end to the harms done to women by their fellow men. Saying “not all men” is never enough. They need to act. We do not need speeches or T-shirts or empty declarations of solidarity. We need good men to be brave and principled enough to speak up against their fellow men who abuse, rape, drug and murder women – whatever the cost may be to them.
The saddest truth this case has exposed is that rapists and other abusers of women are not faceless, nameless monsters lurking in dark alleyways. Even those who commit the most heinous crimes, more often than not, appear to be ordinary men with ordinary lives who harm women simply because they think they can get away with it.
Until his crimes were discovered, Dominique Pelicot too was known to be an ordinary man – a husband, a father, a stand-up member of his community. The men he recruited to rape his wife also appeared to be ordinary. I will never forget the sight of them queuing to go into the courtroom – just everyday men, looking like any husband, father or brother we see on the street. The youngest man on trial admitted raping Gisele the day his daughter was born.
Gisele Pelicot’s brave decision to name and shame the men who raped her created a perfect storm because it exposed the monstrosity of everyday men. Now we need this storm to continue on. We need men to learn from Gisele how to be a hero.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.