The Unflinching Light of Gisele Pelicot: The Radiance of Accountability
Gisele Pelicot bravely ushered us all into an era where we learned that we can and we must look — without restraint — at all the details surrounding rape, particularly when it pertains to our most vulnerable. Her case became a watershed moment not only because of her extraordinary courage and refusal to be silenced by shame but also because the police and justice system meticulously scrutinized every piece of evidence, including hours of detailed testimony.
When it comes to rape, this level of examination must become the norm, agnostic of community or geography. Moreover, it must be understood beyond the narrow concept of sexual deviance. First, rape is not an aberration outside the norm — it is alarmingly prevalent and always has been. And while it involves deviant behavior, at its core, rape is fundamentally about power.
Rape as an organized weapon of power is starkly evident in wartime, where the struggle for dominance is overt. Outside of an official war, these power dynamics become subtler, often hiding in plain sight, and rape is frequently reductively examined as abnormal individual behaviors. Gisele Pelicot forced us to confront this. The deviance of rendering someone unconscious to gain power over them was apparent in her situation. This act of violence was not just about one man’s sickness or weakness, or the deviance of the dozens of rapists that participated in organized rape; it reflected the complicity of the willing bystanders and the broader structures that enabled such behavior. This was about power — power over an unconscious woman — and the deeply broken societal practices that allowed this power to go unchecked. Gisele Pelicot’s fight is a call to examine these systems relentlessly and without interruption. When it comes to rape, particularly involving victims where there is no question of consent, every aspect of what enables and allows such acts must be scrutinized.
A fundamental aspect of the power dynamic in rape lies in the perpetrator’s ability to evade detection. Yet, an even more sinister form of power emerges when perpetrators face no consequences despite being exposed. The capacity to so brazenly and publicly cross societal boundaries, shifting blame onto others, represents a profound and calculated assertion of dominance. This power can be wielded overtly — through political or financial influence — or more subtly, by manipulating systems and shaping public perception. In a polarized world where the “oppressed” is presumed infallible and hierarchies of oppression are constructed through curated narratives, the ability to violate moral boundaries with impunity becomes a potent tool for manipulation and control. And rape is a particularly effective and strategic weapon of power because of its ability to evoke shame in its victim rather than its perpetrator.
Gisele Pelicot’s call for shame to change sides slices through this constructed chaotic delusion. Shame is not merely an internal emotion; it is a societal reckoning. It represents the pressure that communities and institutions must exert to hold individual rapists and groups of rapists accountable and prevent harm.
I am speaking, now, specifically of the horrific, mass-scale rape of young girls by Pakistani Muslim men in the UK, the ongoing cover-up by the UK police, courts, and media, and the claim from some commentators that naming the religion of the rapists constitutes Islamophobia.
The reckoning against rape is universal — it is not constrained by identity or community. However, it must be examined differently when it happens at a systemic level within a community or when a group of rapists are systemically raping the young girls and women of another community. We must ask: What is driving this behavior? What is enabling it? To ignore these questions is to hand over the reins of power to perpetrators through fear and shame. Such examination cannot be dismissed as bigotry or deflected with claims of bias. Rape exists in every community, yes, but intercommunity rape at an organized, systemic level must be scrutinized in its specific context.
There is no legitimate excuse for avoiding this.
I can already anticipate the “India is the rape capital of the world” whataboutism in response to this post. (These are meaningless. First of all, even if we assume that only 10% of rapes in India are reported, the rate of rape in India is still far below that of the United States and the UK. Second, I am very clearly stating — repeatedly — that all systemic rape should be thoroughly examined.) Critically, generalizations or reductive rhetoric fail to advance any meaningful and generative conversation. They distract from the necessary work of uncovering truths and addressing systemic rape, and in the UK, the organized rape of young girls. Gisele Pelicot taught us that this work requires courage — the courage to lay bare all the facts, no matter how uncomfortable, and to confront them with honesty.
The gift she gave us is the unwavering responsibility of every community and individual to confront the facts — free from media distortions, hyperbolic rhetoric, or gross exaggerations. To truly address the hydra of organized and systemic rape, we must be relentless in our pursuit of truth and accountability. Only by laying the facts bare can we begin to dismantle the affordances of power that perpetuate these acts and work toward social and political practices that honor the dignity of our women and children.
