This was an extraordinary response to unimaginable crimes. Yet true change will only come when men engage with the culture that led us here
Women who are raped are in many countries – perhaps in most – violated and abused again by the legal system. And yet during her reckoning with the crimes of her husband and 50 other men, all now found guilty in a historic set of verdicts, Gisèle Pelicot seized control of the narrative, becoming a hero in France and around the world.
After she discovered her husband had been drugging her and offering her up online to strangers to come and rape while she was unconscious, Gisèle left her home, her marriage and the story she had told herself about her life, and spent some time in seclusion.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...