“Shame must change sides,” said Gisèle Pelicot in 2024, at the start of the French trial of 51 men accused of sexually assaulting her over the course of many years while she was unknowingly drugged. “By the time [her husband] Dominique and the dozens of men accused were found guilty three and a half months later,” states the publisher of her new book, Gisèle had become a global figure, and her message—that she and other victims of sexual abuse have no reason to feel ashamed—galvanized a movement that triggered protests and demonstrations around the world.”
If Dominique, the ringleader behind the calculated drugging and assaults, hadn’t been arrested for taking upskirt photos of women in a grocery store, it’s highly probable, however, that these crimes would have continued indefinitely. It was after this incident that the authorities found video proof of what had been happening to Mrs. Pelicot.
They had to break the awful news to her. She saw it but couldn’t believe it. Who was that ragdoll-like figure being victimized? She was unrecognizable.
Gisèle Pelicot had also not known she’d been repeatedly drugged. She’d only known there was something seriously wrong with her mind.
This shocking information about her husband’s and others’ assaults was overwhelming to say the least. Reviewing the book, Emma Brockes, The Guardian, had difficulty with Gisèle’s degree of grief over losing her spouse because it seemed so much heavier than the recognition of his crimes against her. But, Brockes adds, Gisèle “explains that she is of a generation of women for whom, ‘the principal axis of our lives was the man we had married’, and that this conditioning can’t be undone overnight. If we’re angry with Pelicot, she’s angry right back. The worst thing about being a victim, she writes, is being lectured – by her children, by court psychologists, by the press – that there’s a right and wrong way to do it. How dare we, she implies, and of course she is right.”
Despite initial feelings of shame and humiliation, moreover, Gisèle eventually made some ultra-courageous choices, including insisting on a public trial with the press present.
About the successful trial verdict, Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian, headlined, This was an extraordinary response to unimaginable crimes. Yet true change will only come when men engage with the culture that led us here.
Indeed, such advocates as Jackson Katz (see my post on toxic masculinity) have long made this same case, pushing for changing the language to emphasize men’s responsibility and wrongdoing versus women’s victimization. The type of statement that says she was raped is better expressed, for example, as he raped her. Rather than violence against women, speak of men’s violence issues. And so on.
In the end, Gisèle Pelicot says her message is a hopeful one. She has fallen in love with another man with whom she now lives. Not only that, in speaking out about her experiences she believes she has finally found her mission in life.
If, by the way, you’re an audiobook fan needing an English-language reading of A Hymn, actress Emma Thompson has apparently been tapped for this role. Thompson has stated on Instagram that “the ‘absolutely extraordinary’ story was ‘difficult to read out loud’ but that it ‘inspires courage and compassion but also crucially demands change'” (LeMonde).
For an exclusive excerpt of A Hymn to Life, go to this People link.
