We reproduce below a translated article from the French group Plateforme
Communiste Libertaire (Libertarian Communist Platform) as we think itraises 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.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2025/01/10/the-mazan-rape-case/
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