We reproduce below a translated article from the French group Plateforme Communiste Libertaire (Libertarian Communist Platform) as we think it raises important issues.
The trial of the “Mazan rapes” reminded us that sexual and sexist violence, including when it takes the form of rape, is omnipresent in Western societies. It is “ inscribed ” in the social and ideological structures of our societies: it is therefore “ systemic “. It also highlighted an opposition between two feminist visions: on the one hand, the stigmatisation of a “ camp of the violent” that would group together men as a whole, and on the other, the assertion that “not all men are guilty“. However, through the statements of Gisèle Pélicot, raised up as a heroine by feminist movements, there is a possibility of finding a synthesis between these apparently irreconcilable positions.
For ten years, Gisèle Pélicot was drugged by her husband, who raped her and had her raped while she was unconscious, more than 200 times, by strangers he recruited on the website Coco.fr – since closed –, who also filmed these sordid crimes. Beyond the chilling nature of this case, Gisèle Pélicot’s decision to refuse to hold the trial in camera and to have the videos of the rapes viewed gave this trial an unprecedented character. Such a character that many commentators speak of ” a before and after the Pélicot trial “.
As early as September 2024, Gisèle Pélicot stated that she wanted to dedicate her fight “to all the people, women and men, who throughout the world are victims of sexual violence“. For her, it was a question of leading a political fight. And on the day the verdict was announced, she refused to discuss the quantum of sentences and to get involved in the controversy that developed over sentences that were “too light . She simply stated: “I respect the Court and the decision of this verdict “.
Far from acting in a spirit of revenge, she simply reaffirmed: “I wanted, by opening the doors of this trial on September 2, for society to be able to take hold of the debates that took place. I have never regretted this decision. I am confident, now, in our ability to collectively seize a future in which everyone, women and men, can live in harmony with respect and mutual understanding .”
We would like to be just as optimistic and think that this trial could actually lead to a break with the macho logic that devalues women. Let us recall that the law in France has only been purged of the provisions subjecting women, first to the authority of the father, then to that of the husband, for a few decades. Mentalities and power relations have not been transformed immediately.
It is this matrix of devaluation that maintains social relations of denigration, discrimination and finally violence against women. If rapes by strangers have always been socially condemned, because at the time analysed as damage caused to the honour of the father or husband, rapes and domestic sexual violence have for too long escaped any social questioning. “If you don’t know why you hit your wife, she know ” said the popular adage!
From this point of view, the Mazan trial marks a break. The heaviest sentence, the maximum penalty provided by law, concerns the husband. His status as husband was described as an aggravating circumstance. The others, the unknowns, were sentenced less harshly, but they were all sentenced for the sexual violence they committed, without mitigating circumstances. Ordinary, accidental or involuntary rape does not exist!
You are not born a man, you become one!
There is, however, a major contradiction between, for example, the assertion of the ” systemic ” nature of violence against women and the demand asserted by some feminists for a sentence of ” 20 years for each “. Because if this violence is a social fact, the major issue is not so much to punish, or to take revenge, but by pronouncing these judgments, to send a clear message to the whole of society: all violence against women, whether committed by relatives or strangers, must be legally repressed, with the aim of changing society.
Here again, the already quoted remarks of Gisèle Pélicot are completely in line with this logic. What Gisèle Pélicot tells us is that women have an interest in freeing themselves from the unequal relationship with men, but that the same is true for men who also have every interest in ” living in harmony with respect and mutual understanding ” with women.
Obviously, feminist movements invite women to free themselves from the social role in which patriarchal society confines them. So, we do not hesitate to paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir who wrote in her book The Second Sex : “One is not born a woman: one becomes one.” Because in the same way, one is not born a man, one is not born with macho behaviour simply because one has a penis, but it is through education, through impregnation by the dominant culture, that one adopts these predatory behaviours. And the education of children, it must be remembered, is also, perhaps even above all, provided by women, themselves under the pressure of the dominant macho ideology. Also, it is not only because of men that patriarchy is perpetuated. It is this hold of patriarchy over the whole of society that must be destroyed.
Here again, Gisèle Pélicot hits the mark: by dedicating her fight ” to all the people, women and men, who throughout the world are victims of sexual violence “, she points out a forgotten reality. The study commissioned by the Conference of Bishops of France following the scandal of sexual assaults within the Catholic Church shows that in France, among people aged 18 and over today, 5.5 million have suffered sexual assaults, whether in their close circle, among the clergy (6% of assaults having been committed in a religious setting), within sports or cultural clubs, at school or in summer camps.
These attacks, all combined, affected 14.5% of women and 6.4% of men. Of course, there are 2.3 times more women victims than men. But the male victims of the patriarchal order are not a marginal reality. If we add to this the men who are victims of homophobia or all the young boys and men who are victims of physical or mental violence or of a ” simple ” devaluation because they are not sufficiently virile, it becomes obvious that the system organising inequality between men and women does not really oppose men and women, but a minority part of the population against the majority, among whom women are obviously more numerous.
Thus, violence is not the ” natural ” expression of masculinity. Our shared culture pushes men to be dominant and women to submit willingly or by force. In fact, this violence stems from a desire to impose domination. This is what Dominique Pélicot admitted during the trial. His fantasy was to ” subdue an insubordinate woman “. This is also what psychiatrist Nicolas Estano, working in the Ville Evrard Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology Unit, who tries to treat perpetrators of sexual violence under compulsory therapy, claims:
” Most people who rape adult women do not suffer from any pathology .” Similarly, for criminologist Loïck Villerbu: ” rape is first and foremost an assault. And the aggressor chooses the sexual field .” The aggressor ” seeks omnipotence and domination .”
This reality questions us. In capitalist societies, social relations are permanently marked by relations of domination, between social classes, according to gender or origin, … Is it even possible to consider putting an end to unequal relations between men and women without globally challenging the logic of domination that organises capitalist society, and therefore without leaving capitalism?
Are men, as a whole, part of a violent camp?
In an article dated November 19, 2024, the newspaper Le Monde recalled ” the banality of the profiles of the 51 accused, 37 of whom are fathers, and the chilling mechanism of this case, have shaken the “peace of mind behind which the men have hidden until now” (…). Firefighter, lawyer, worker, truck driver, journalist… Everyman, aged 26 to 74. Our neighbours, our colleagues, our brothers .” This observation inspired the novelist Lola Lafon, who expressed herself thus in the newspaper Libération: ” If all men are not rapists, rapists can apparently be any man .”
Because indeed, the least we can say is that the Pélicot case highlights several realities of sexual violence. First, it reminds us that the majority of assaults take place in a family setting. Then, it sheds light on the “systemic” nature of sexual violence, which affects the vast majority of women. Sexual violence concerns society as a whole and affects all its members. No one can claim to completely escape the mechanisms produced by the dominant ideology. It is therefore not a question of reassuring ourselves by asserting that the perpetrators of sexual violence only concern a minority of men, nor, above all, of considering that they are sick or monstrous.
The activists of the Platform are convinced that, in fact, when faced with sexual assaults against women, as with any form of physical or psychological violence against people, a large number of men “at the very least turn a blind eye“. But we also know that this is not just a male characteristic.
Because when faced with any aggression, such as a genocide, History shows that humans are divided more or less into three categories. Those who participate or support the horror, others who are indifferent or let it happen out of fear, and finally those who do not accept it. When faced with rape, it is the same. Thus, overwhelming all men, ordering them to ” be ashamed ” as the philosopher Camille Froidevaux-Metterie did, is manipulation.
Let us not forget how Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex , a founding book of contemporary feminism, showed that women can be responsible for and participate in their own subjection. Also, it is not because women are the first victims of sexual violence that they have no individual or collective responsibility, like men, in the perpetuation of the relations of domination that ultimately generate this violence.
Thus, asking the question of the responsibility of men as a whole paradoxically obscures the social role of macho ideology, which is itself globally responsible for the processes of sexual violence. It is society as a whole that is sick. It is the manure of relations of domination that feeds the devaluation of women and that legitimises the violence imposed on the dominated.
These globalising ” feminist ” postures are not only obstacles to challenging the unequal system between women and men. They also constitute a strategic error in excluding sincere allies from this fight.
So how can we fight against sexist and sexual violence?
In the end, the hope carried by Gisèle Pélicot for a society in which ” everyone, woman and man, can live in harmony with respect and mutual understanding ” does not seem to us to be in vain, even if it is probably not for now. But first, the fight to have the ” systemic ” nature of sexist violence recognised must be won. And to make the responsibility for this reality fall, not on men as a whole, but on patriarchal society as a whole!
The fight is not won! It must therefore continue. For several decades, feminist movements have taken up the issue of sexist and sexual violence. Victories can be won that will make it more complicated to act and will probably reduce the level of violence.
The Mazan trial could facilitate certain developments. A comprehensive law against sexist violence could even be developed and, let’s dream, the necessary funding released. Fundamental work must therefore be done in the areas of education to abolish gendered injunctions – references, models, and behaviours towards children – which lock them into a dominant/dominated pattern. But we know how fragile the political rise of the extreme right makes these prospects.
The fact of including the question of consent in the legal definition of rape is raised. But it is a controversial question. The specific question of consent, or non-consent of the victim, could once again shift the judicial questioning to the victim herself, with all her excesses, once again putting in the hot seat… the victim alone.
More specifically within social movement organisations and political organisations, there is still a long way to go to put an end to sexism, including sexual violence.
The fight is far from won. Considering the first place where gender domination is organised, that is to say the family, one can argue that it becomes the very prototype of all domination. The feminism that today holds the upper hand claims to be ” intersectional “, that is to say that it takes into account the globality of the processes of domination. Which goes in the same direction as our questions above on the possibility of undoing machismo without calling into question the principle of domination itself.
Yet this feminism too often forgets the question of the foundations of domination and alienation in general, and therefore the question of class in the construction of its actions. Is it because women of the proletariat are unfortunately underrepresented in feminist organisations?
A truly “intersectional” feminism should, however, place the question of class, which runs through all social processes, at the heart of its thinking. Of course, the realities of sexual and/or gendered domination present particularities that justify specific work. But it is fundamental that the aspirations of proletarian women to improve their economic condition are truly taken into account by feminist associations. Even recently, the last struggle of proletarian women that received some media coverage, the strike at Vertbaudet in 2023, was only supported by a very small minority of feminist organisations.
However, as is always the case, this strike allowed the strikers to become aware of the particularities of their exploitation because they are both proletarians and women. Clearly the feminist struggle cannot be waged solely within feminist associations. For all revolutionary activists, the fight against machismo must also be waged within the organisations of the social movement. This is probably where the junction between the class struggle and that for the emancipation of women can be embodied.