Dear Gisèle
To the woman (and women) who deserved better.
Hi loves! Welcome to day three of Substackmas - we’re almost halfway through, crazy? This morning’s subby will be heavy for most, so I’m putting a TW here (for descriptions of sexual violence and abuse). I completely understand if you can’t tune in today. Regardless, I’m sure many young women (or not) would be feeling similarly at the moment, and this wasn’t something I wanted to overlook but rather approach with some love and caution. Sending you a tight squeeze wherever you are 🫶🏾
This past weekend, while en route to enjoy lunch with my dad and brother, I happened to sit next to a man actively and confidently watching porn content of young girls, including upskirting videos, on his Facebook feed. His legs shifted as he laid them out further to manspread, continuously looking to his right - where I was sitting - to make sure I was watching (disgusted) what he was doing before letting out a huff, seemingly disappointed at his failure to instigate a response from me. He had not one ounce of shame nor consideration for how his actions, ones that briefly let him assert what dominance he could muster, would make me completely uncomfortable — or any other person on the train, for that matter.
As I type this, I’m in a building that’s slightly foreign to me. The cold, London winter air seeps through a metal window left ajar, and I can feel the edge of my hoodie zip against my bottom lip. It’s like the sky has gone from grey to midnight navy in a matter of minutes, and the pipes above me keep rattling as though a little friend, and not the kind I’m fond of, wants to say ‘Hello!’ But this temporary discomfort is nothing in comparison to what Gisèle Pelicot endured for years.
For hours, I’ve tried to maintain focus on the tasks at hand, but I can’t shake the knot in my stomach. Yesterday (November 19th), Gisèle Pelicot received some justice. The 72-year-old’s husband, a rapist and alleged murderer (for a separate case in the late ‘90s), was jailed for 20 years for drugging and aggravated rape against her. He, alongside all 50 men, his co-conspirers, who violated her, will also be jailed. But I say some justice because that just doesn’t feel like enough for her suffering. On September 12th, 2020, everything would begin to shift.
It is undoubtedly a victorious occasion, one that is being described as a ‘landmark case’, as it is — but I just can’t shake the melancholy that surrounds it.
Admittedly, this has been really hard to write and try to frame thoughts around because it’s all a mess. It saddens me that situations like Gisele’s happen so often and pass, gone with the wind. Few women see justice. In the UK, according to the Crown Prosecution, there are increases across the board when dealing with rape cases — in the last year, there was a 32.5% increase in the number of convictions, a 33.2% increase in the number of case referrals regarding rape; and a 34.4% increase in the number of suspects charged in rape cases. However, perhaps as expected, the conviction rate had decreased by 3.2% from 2022/23. I’m sorry for all the numbers, but if we were to round these figures up, they’d be closer to a 50% increase than the other end. These stats are frightening because they suggest that while we’re increasingly being violated, we’re still not getting justice.
The details of Gisèle’s trauma are precisely that: traumatic. The beautiful 72-year-old woman had to endure repeated violations to her body over an almost decade-long period, beginning in 2011, most of which she doesn’t remember because her ex-husband would drug her.
Is it bad to say her justice was accidental? If not for the perpetrator, her ex-husband, ‘slipping up’ in public and being caught by security, the police wouldn’t have uncovered the deeper darkness that lie in their wake. A ‘mistake’ that the man sat beside me on the train freely got away with. Upon seizing his laptop, police found thousands of videos, over 200 of which were recorded by him of his (now) ex-wife being raped, labelled under a file titled ‘Abuse’. To string a sentence together describing what he has put her through even feels absurd. The whole time, he knew what he was doing. He is a monster in every sense of the word: cunningly meticulous, unapologetically sinister, and ruthlessly undignified. I can’t imagine what she’s feeling amidst the triumph being thrust upon her. While watching the news clips of her post-sentencing, I just want someone to pull her out. For the last two decades, she’s had strangers intrude on her space — and though those around her now celebrate her, championing her as “a figurehead of feminism” and labelling her as ‘a reluctant hero’, she didn’t want any of this. Nobody ever wants this.
"I want all women who have been raped to say: Madame Pelicot did it, I can too," Gisèle said during the trial. A powerful statement for a woman who waived the right to her anonymity and essentially helped lead this case to the success it (finally) reached. But although this was the ultimate result, it’s unfortunate that many outside that courtroom and beyond the sobbing, glitter-faced crowds disagreed with the result.
Part of the conversation now is observing how men particularly feel as though the case was ‘highly dramatised’. Despite the facts, we still can’t win. Many have been ‘unable’ to reckon with the fact that these ‘everyday, ordinary men’ were ‘capable’ of being rapists — each being coined the name ‘Mr Everyman’. Someone, some man, somewhere has just ended his sentence with: ‘It’s not all men’ - but that’s a conversation for another day. Most of the men denied what they did was even a crime. Hmm. Of some of the statistics to come from this case, it has been stated that:
75% of the men have children.
50% are married or in a relationship.
Just over 25% said they had been raped or abused as children.
45% had previous criminal convictions.
Globally, it’s fair to guesstimate that between 60-80% of victims personally know their rapist. It feels more ridiculous that some can’t comprehend that her ex-husband did this to her — this isn’t unbelievable to women. Is it appalling? Absolutely. Shocking? Sure. But this is life for women. Instances like these tragically occur right under our eyes and noses, and often, when someone musters the courage to get justice, the justice system slams a heavy, unchanging door in their face, as the facts above show.
Eight days ago, TIME Magazine named convicted felon, I mean, recently re-elected, former president Donald Trump, Person of the Year for the second time. They first did so eight years ago, in 2016. At the time of writing this, it’s been 18 hours since the Financial Times named him their Person of the Year (yesterday, once you receive this). A quick Google search will tell you that since the 1970s, 26 women have accused Trump of sexually assaulting them. With this knowledge, a large majority of an entire Western nation willingly chose to make him their president. Again.
In cases like those 26 women, and like Gisele, there’s an acknowledgement that little progress will be made without some trickling down; the real action must come from those at the top. But that’s not been done, and it’s not being done, so who do we turn to?
Part of me wants to apologise for trying to tackle this as a newsletter, for not being able to pivot this with the hopeful, grace-infused messaging they usually have — I can’t bring myself to — and ultimately, for not doing Madame Gisèle justice in the way she deserves. My only request is that rather than leave this conversation at the sentencing, we keep talking about it: how to make things safe for our women, how to raise better men, and how to make female safety a common (and solid) ideology rather than a suggestion or implication (?) These can only be but a few suggestions. None of us are idiots; what is truly needed is systemic change. But what is the point of calling for that in a time where it’s unfathomably clear that those who can genuinely invoke change simply don’t want to?
In true, glamourised media etiquette, this has become a story to be commodified rather than news to be reported. There’s no need for a Netflix retelling nor a series to reconstruct what she went through (Ryan Murphy, I’m talking to you especially) — if anything, I feel like it will simply give the wrong people further ‘inspiration’, and that’s both beyond unnecessary and terrifying. I hope from schools to advisory boards, legal teams to policymakers, this ‘landmark case’ flags the need for education and clarification. If there are multiple generations of men globally who can speak English - or don’t - yet still struggle to define what rape is, means and constitutes accurately, then there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. The hands we’re leaving it in have almost exhausted their resources. This isn’t a warning. It’s a cry - a deep, bellowing plea - for help.
Dear Gisèle,
And every woman who related to her story, we stand with and by you. We hear, see and support you. A hug may not feel safe, but I hope the love of an abundant number of women can reach you to a point comfortable enough to offer some consolation that you are not alone and that we will continue to see you as the beautiful woman you are until the rest catch on that you only need to be seen as what you are in the fine print: human. Shame will change sides — many of us are “determined” to do so, alongside you.
Gisèle, your marriage should have been a safe space. Those vows of ‘To have and to hold…to love and to cherish’ were tarnished, yet still stand and are still sacred – perhaps just not from him and not from them, but for us and from us.