Donald Trump? No. Gisèle Pelicot is the real Person of the Year
It is a case that has shocked the world, but the incredible woman at the heart of it has revealed uncomfortable truths, says Laura Bates. Her bravery has forced us to recognise that men commit violence against women every single day and that such violence is not committed by 'monsters', but by normal-seeming men
Gisèle Pelicot believes that change is possible. Speaking outside the courtroom in Avignon this morning, where her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot was jailed for 20 years for drugging her and recruiting strangers to rape her, she said she “never regretted” her selfless decision to waive her right to private legal proceedings. She believed it was important for “society to see what is happening”. That visibility, she realised, despite the enormous personal cost, was vital in order for real change to happen. “I do it on behalf of all women,” she has said.
Today, France’s worst-ever mass rape trial saw 51 men convicted for a total of 428 years. Dominique Pelicot was jailed for the maximum term of 20 years, having drugged his wife so he and strangers could abuse and rape her while he filmed it. Police found some 20,000 images of the abuse on his computer, as well as pictures of his daughter and his two daughters-in-law.
In a case that sent shock waves around the world, Gisèle Pelicot emerged as an almost unimaginably courageous symbol of feminist resistance against rape culture. Her insistence that shame must “change sides” has reverberated internationally, challenging deeply misogynistic assumptions about sexual violence in France and far beyond, galvanising feminist movements, inspiring male allies to speak out and, above all, providing solace and strength to fellow survivors.
So great has the impact been, that since Time magazine announced Donald Trump as its Person of the Year, social media has been flooded with posts, mainly created by women, suggesting that the title should have been awarded to Gisèle Pelicot instead.
Gisèle’s bravery was not only demonstrated by her choice to waive her anonymity and hold the trial in public. She also insisted that the extensive video evidence of the men who had raped her must be played at the trial. It was a personal sacrifice of immense courage, which forced the world to reckon with the brutal reality of what had happened.
She revealed that she was at first ashamed of her snoring in the videos, yet this heartbreaking detail was crucial in preventing defence lawyers from trotting out the ridiculous claim that the defendants had believed her to be consenting.
Realising how many other women who experience drug-assisted rape would not possess similar proof, Gisèle made hers public, and in so doing, she demonstrated to the world that these horrendous, unimaginable, yet everyday acts of misogynistic abuse really do happen. In a world in which so many women are dismissed, disbelieved and ignored when they experience sexual violence, she took a stand for us all.
Her bravery also meant that the mundane normality of the male defendants could be brought under a global spotlight, denying her abusers any comfort of anonymity. This enabled a societal reckoning with the uncomfortable reality, long voiced by women but too often ignored, that rapists are not “monstrous” aberrations but fathers, husbands, neighbours and “normal” men in our communities.
Among them are firefighters, soldiers, a journalist, a nurse, security guards, lorry drivers and a DJ. The youngest of those convicted was just 22 years old and went to the Pelicots’ house on the night his own daughter was born.
The public nature of the trial allowed their craven excuses, made by so many men in similar cases, to be exposed to public scrutiny. The ridiculous misogyny of claims made by various defendants was on full display, such as one who claimed: “As long as the husband was present, there was no rape,” and another of her abusers who stated he felt “as much a victim as she was” because he did not give his consent to be filmed.
In a world in which harmful rape myths still abound, all this allowed such misconceptions to be robustly challenged. The mayor of Mazan, the village where the crimes occurred, told a BBC reporter: “I think it could have been much worse… When there are kids involved, or women killed, then that is very serious because you can’t go back. In this case, the family will have to rebuild itself. It will be hard, but no one died.”
Such comments are sadly not unusual from authority figures: they remind us of the words of the police and crime commissioner who suggested that women “need to be streetwise” in an interview following the rape and murder of Sarah Everard. But Gisèle’s bravery in taking such a public stand has enabled these outdated attitudes, held by so many, to be exposed and rebutted.
All this more than befits Gisèle for the title of Person of the Year. The fact that she was not even shortlisted is galling, but the decision to award the title instead to Donald Trump makes the insult far worse. The juxtaposition is so stark. Trump has reduced women to their genitals, which he happily joked he liked to grab them by, and a jury found him liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5m in a judgment.
Yet, in January, he will become one of the most powerful men on the planet. While he thrives on division, Gisèle has united a nation in condemnation of male violence and united women around the world in solidarity and opposition to rape culture and violence against women.
Trump is a coward who tried to incite an uprising because he wasn’t brave enough to accept defeat. Pelicot, conversely, has demonstrated almost unimaginable bravery. Of course, it will be argued that Time does not intend the title to confer incontrovertible praise: it has described its annual winner as: “a person, group, or concept that had the biggest impact – for good or for ill – on the world over the previous 12 months”.
But even this raises questions about how we measure impact, about what kind of power counts, what kind of change matters, and to whom. Pelicot’s courage in the face of unimaginable horror created seismic shock waves around the world.
For women across the globe, it matters. What we see when we look at Trump’s face on the front of Time is not just Trump. It is the fact that, once again, the issues that affect women and girls so deeply are considered inconsequential: less real, less deserving of note, less relevant to society as a whole.
Of course, an empty accolade won’t provide Gisèle with justice or give her back the years of her life she has lost to egregious deception and abuse. Yet it has become a lightning rod for women’s wider feelings of frustration, indignation and rage.
This case also points to a wider landscape in which misogyny thrives and the abuse and violence against women is relentlessly dismissed and even happily joked about. Jeremy Clarkson can fantasise publicly about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, being stripped naked and pelted with excrement in a national newspaper. Andrew Tate is given a long sit-down interview by the BBC, with all the legitimacy that inevitably confers, while charged with rape and human trafficking.
This case makes us think about the voice given to men like Tate and others like him, when we have barely heard from his accusers. It’s about all those other men enjoying awards and glittering careers while their accusers go to hell and back, their lives blighted by public contempt and vitriol.
It’s about women forced to abandon their loved careers and quietly leaving their workplace with an NDA and so-called “pay-off”, while their abusers continue to be lauded and thrive. Yes, we are angry about male violence, but we are also angry at all the systems that facilitate it, disguise it, fete it, obfuscate and excuse it. And allow it to continue time and time again.
Person of the Year started out as Man of the Year. Perhaps not much has changed, but we owe Gisèle an enormous debt of gratitude. Her sacrifice and her courage has made “shame change sides”.
She has forced society to recognise that men commit violence against women every single day and that such violence is not committed by “monsters”, but by every type of man. The best way to honour that sacrifice is not with a meaningless title, but by acknowledging and addressing the global epidemic of male violence.
Laura Bates is a writer, campaigner and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project