A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #33 - The Mazan Rape Case Plateforme Communiste Libertaire (*) (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The "Mazan rape" trial reminded us that sexual and gender violence, even 
when it takes the form of rape, is omnipresent in Western societies. It 
is "embedded" in the social and ideological structures of our societies: 
it is therefore "systemic". It also highlighted the opposition between 
two feminist visions: on the one hand, the stigmatization of a "violent 
camp" that would include all men, on the other, the assertion that "not 
all men are guilty". Yet, through the statements of Gisèle Pélicot, who 
has been made a heroine by feminist movements, there is the 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, on more than 200 occasions, 
by strangers he recruited from the website Coco.fr - which has since 
been closed - and who filmed these sordid crimes. In addition to the 
horrifying nature of this case, Gisèle Pélicot's decision to refuse to 
hold the trial behind closed doors and to allow the viewing of the rape 
videos has given the trial a unique character. So much so that many 
commentators have spoken of "a before and after of the Pélicot trial".

In September 2024, Gisèle Pélicot declared that she wanted to dedicate 
her battle "to all women and men around the world who are victims of 
sexual violence". For her, this was a political battle. On the day the 
verdict was announced, she refused to discuss the amount of sentences or 
participate in the controversy that developed over the "too lenient" 
sentences.

He simply stated: "I respect the Court and the verdict." Far from acting 
out of revenge, he simply reiterated: "By opening the doors of this 
trial on September 2, I wanted society to be able to take stock of the 
debates that have taken place. I have never regretted that decision. I 
now have confidence in our collective ability to seize a future in which 
all, women and men, can live in harmony, with mutual respect and 
understanding."

We would also like to be optimistic and think that this process can 
really lead to a break with the male chauvinist logic that devalues 
women. Let us remember that only a few decades ago French law was 
cleansed of the provisions that subjected women first to the authority 
of the father and then to that of the husband. Attitudes and 
relationships of domination did not transform immediately.

It is this matrix of devaluation that maintains social relations of 
denigration, discrimination and, ultimately, violence against women. 
While rape by strangers has always been socially condemned, because at 
the time it was analyzed as a damage to the honor of the father or 
husband, rape and domestic sexual violence have escaped any social 
questioning for too long. "If you don't know why he beats your wife, she 
knows," as the saying goes!

From this point of view, the Mazan trial marks a turning point. The 
heaviest sentence, the maximum penalty provided by law, was for the 
husband. His status as a husband was considered an aggravating 
circumstance. The others, the unknown men, received lighter sentences, 
but they were all convicted for the sexual assaults they committed, 
without any mitigating circumstances. There is no such thing as 
ordinary, accidental or involuntary rape!

You are not born a man, you become one!

There is, however, a great contradiction between, for example, the 
statement that violence against women is "systemic" and the demand of 
some feminists for a "20-year sentence for all". Although such violence 
is a fact of society, the fundamental issue is not so much to punish or 
take revenge, but to send a clear message to society as a whole: all 
violence against women, whether committed by family members or 
strangers, must be punished by law, with the aim of producing a change 
in society.

Gisèle Pélicot's comments above are fully in line with this approach. 
Gisèle Pélicot tells us that it is in women's interest to emancipate 
themselves from the unequal relationship with men, but that the same 
applies to men, who have every interest in "living in harmony, with 
mutual respect and understanding" with women.

Of course, feminist movements ask women to emancipate themselves from 
the social role to which they are confined by patriarchal society. So 
let us not hesitate to paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir, who in her book 
"The Second Sex" wrote: "One is not born a woman: one becomes one." 
Likewise, one is not born a man, one is not born with a macho behavior 
just because one has a penis, but it is through education, through being 
imbued with the dominant culture, that one adopts these predatory 
behaviors. And the education of children, it should be remembered, is 
also imparted, perhaps above all, by women, themselves under the 
pressure of the dominant male ideology. So it is not only men who 
perpetuate patriarchy. It is the hold that patriarchy has on the entire 
society that must be destroyed.

Once again, Gisèle Pélicot hits the nail on the head: by dedicating her 
battle "to all women and men around the world who are victims of sexual 
violence", she highlights a forgotten reality. The study commissioned by 
the Conférence des évêques de France (French Episcopal Conference) 
following the scandal of sexual violence in the Catholic Church shows 
that today in France 5.5 million people over the age of 18 have suffered 
sexual violence, whether in their immediate circle, among the clergy (6% 
of attacks were committed in a religious context), in sports or cultural 
clubs, at school or in holiday camps.

These attacks, overall, affected 14.5% of women and 6.4% of men. Of 
course, the number of victims is 2, 3 times higher among women than 
among 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 boys and men who are victims of physical or mental 
violence or of a "simple" devaluation because they are not virile 
enough, it becomes clear that the system that organizes the inequality 
between men and women does not really pit men against women, but rather 
a minority part of the population against the majority, among whom women 
are obviously more numerous.

So violence is not the "natural" expression of masculinity. Our common 
culture pushes men to be dominant and women to submit voluntarily or by 
force. In reality, this violence is part of the desire to impose 
domination. This is what Dominique Pélicot admitted during the trial. 
His fantasy was to "subdue a rebellious woman".

Psychiatrist Nicolas Estano, for example, who works in the Forensic 
Psychiatry and Psychology Unit of Ville Evrard, which tries to treat 
perpetrators of sexual violence with therapeutic obligation, also thinks 
so: "Most people who rape adult women do not suffer from any pathology."

Similarly, for criminologist Loïck Villerbu: "Rape is first and foremost 
an aggression. And the aggressor chooses the sexual field." The 
aggressor "seeks omnipotence and domination."

This reality raises questions for us. In capitalist societies, social 
relations are permanently marked by relations of domination, between 
social classes, on the basis of gender or origin, etc. Is it possible to 
think of putting an end to unequal relations between men and women 
without globally questioning the logic of domination that organizes 
capitalist society, and therefore without leaving capitalism?

Are all men part of a violent camp?

In an article dated November 19, 2024, the daily newspaper Le Monde 
recalls that "the banality of the profiles of the 51 defendants, 37 of 
whom are fathers, and the chilling mechanism of this case, have shaken 
the "tranquility behind which men have hidden until now" (...). 
Firefighter, lawyer, worker, truck driver, journalist... All men, from 
26 to 74 years old. Our neighbors, our colleagues, our brothers".

This observation inspired the writer Lola Lafon, who wrote in the 
newspaper Libération: "If all men are not rapists, rapists can 
apparently be any man." Indeed, the least we can say is that the Pélicot 
case highlights several realities of sexual violence. First, it reminds 
us that most assaults occur in a family context. Second, it sheds light 
on the "systemic" nature of sexual violence, which in the vast majority 
of cases affects women. Sexual violence concerns society as a whole and 
affects all its members. No one can claim to be totally immune from the 
mechanisms produced by the dominant ideology. It is therefore not a 
question of reassuring ourselves by saying that the perpetrators of 
sexual violence are only a minority of men or, above all, of considering 
them sick or monstrous.

The militants of La Plateforme are convinced that when it comes to 
sexual assaults against women, as with any form of physical or 
psychological violence against people, a large number of men "turn at 
least one eye". But we also know that this is not just a male 
characteristic.

Faced with any form of aggression, such as genocide, history shows that 
human beings fall into three categories. Those who participate in or 
support the horror, others who are indifferent or let it happen out of 
fear, and finally those who do not accept it. The same goes for rape. So 
condemning all men, ordering them to "be ashamed", as the philosopher 
Camille Froidevaux-Metterie did, is a form of manipulation.

Let us not forget that Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex , a 
founding book of contemporary feminism, demonstrated that women can be 
responsible and participate in their own subjugation. Therefore, the 
fact that women are the first victims of sexual violence does not mean 
that they, like men, have no individual or collective responsibility in 
perpetuating the relations of domination that ultimately generate this 
violence.

Raising the question of the responsibility of men as a whole 
paradoxically obscures the social role of male chauvinist ideology, 
which is globally responsible for the process of sexual violence.

Society as a whole is sick. It is the dung of relations of domination 
that fuels the devaluation of women and legitimizes the violence imposed 
on the dominated.

These all-encompassing "feminist" positions are not only an obstacle to 
challenging the system of inequality between women and men. They are 
also a strategic mistake, as they sideline sincere allies in this fight.

So how can we combat sexual and gender-based violence?

Ultimately, Gisèle Pélicot's wish for a society in which "all, women and 
men, can live in harmony, with mutual respect and understanding" does 
not seem vain to us, even if it probably will not come true immediately. 
But first we must win the battle to have the "systemic" nature of gender 
violence recognized. And shift the responsibility for this reality not 
onto men as a whole, but onto patriarchal society as a whole!

The battle is not won! So we must continue. Over the past decades, 
feminist movements have addressed the issue of sexual and sexist 
violence. There are victories that can be achieved that will make it 
harder to take action and will probably reduce the level of violence.

The Mazan trial could facilitate some changes. A comprehensive law 
against gender violence could even be drafted and, we dream, the 
necessary funds released. Fundamental work must also be done in the 
field of education to abolish gender injunctions - references, models 
and behaviors towards children - that lock them into a 
dominant/dominated pattern.

But we know how fragile these prospects are, given the political rise of 
the far right. The question of including consent in the legal definition 
of rape has been raised. But it is a controversial issue.

The specific question of the victim's consent, or lack thereof, could 
once again shift the focus of judicial questioning onto the victim 
herself, with all the abuses that come with it, once again putting the 
victim alone at the center of attention. More specifically, within 
social movement organizations and political organizations, there is 
still a long way to go to end sexism, including sexual violence.

The battle is far from won. If we look at the first place where gender 
domination is organized, that is, the family, we can argue that it is 
becoming the very prototype of all domination. The feminism currently in 
the spotlight declares itself "intersectional", that is, it takes into 
account all processes of domination. This goes in the same direction as 
our previous questions about the possibility of canceling machismo 
without questioning the very principle of domination.

However, 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 proletarian 
women are sadly underrepresented in feminist organizations?

A truly intersectional feminism should place the question of class, 
which runs through all social processes, at the center of its thinking. 
Naturally, the realities of sexual and/or gender domination present 
particularities that justify specific work.

But it is crucial that the aspirations of working-class women to improve 
their economic situation are actually taken into account by feminist 
associations. Until recently, the most recent struggle of working-class 
women that received some media coverage, the Vertbaudet strike of 2023, 
was supported by only a small minority of feminist organizations.

However, as always happens, this strike has allowed the strikers to 
become aware of the particularities of their exploitation because they 
are proletarians and women. It is clear that the feminist struggle 
cannot be conducted only within feminist associations.

For all revolutionary militants, the fight against machismo must also be 
waged within social movement organizations.

This is probably where the link between the class struggle and the 
struggle for women's emancipation will arise.

*) The original text available at 
https://plateformecl.org/laffaire-des-viols-de-mazan/

http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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