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.

    • cheesepotatoes@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      All rape is bad. It’s probably one of, if not the darkest, most evil form of violation one human being can do to another.

      The way sexual violence against women and sexual violence against men manifest themselves in our societies are totally different however. Each with different contexts and unique problems. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous and a bad faith argument.

      To hijack a thread about a woman who was drugged and raped by over 100 men over the course of a decade, which is a particularly shocking assault, because your specific trauma isn’t represented in this particular context is beyond offensive and petty.

      This woman was drugged and raped by over 100 men, over a huge gulf of time, orchestrated by a man that she trusted (her husband). It is an absolutely insane level of personal assault. Yet here we are, in the comments section, talking about men and their problems. Like we always end up doing.

        • EndlessApollo@lemmy.world
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          5 minutes ago

          There’s a BLM protest over the police shooting an innocent black person 100+ times while they had their hands up. Someone posts about it on lemmy. A bunch of white people come to the thread and mention that the protest is bad because they’ve also been abused by police, and one (1) person there had a sign that says “fuck white people”. They say that sign is evil and racist and spoils the whole protest, and that the protest is garbage anyway because aLl LIveS mAtTEr and how dare they only protest violence against black people? White people are victims too! And BLM is a bunch of racist assholes who hate all white people for not catering to them 24/7 and having the gall to protest issues they disproportionately face rather than protesting for all victims of police violence.

          This is you, to the letter. This is you and every other man coming here to distract from the issue at hand bc your issue is more important and bc you don’t give a shit about the people protesting or the fact that they face disproportionate amounts of violence.

          This Is Not About You

          If there ever is a protest against raping men, I hope nobody trolls it with the same AllLivesMatter bullshit that you are here

        • strawberrysocial@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          How about you just say you don’t care about women and you are also sexist? Would be way easier for you, too.