One Thing You Should Do This Month: Learn the Story of Gisèle Pelicot.
October is an important month for me. It was in the month of October in the year 2000 that I first began working in the sexual and domestic violence field. For over 20 years I worked for sexual and domestic violence organizations. Sexual and domestic violence are issues that are often siloed- we even have separate awareness months- but in many cases, they are inextricably linked.
In October of 2001, I gave my first speech as a survivor of sexual violence by a dating partner. I titled that speech, “Breaking the Silence.” I knew the risk I was taking by sharing my story publicly. I knew there would be people- and there were- who judged me, ridiculed me, spread rumors that I was lying or painted my efforts as seeking revenge. But what drove me to share my story was the internal wisdom that I was not alone. Immediately following my speech, dozens of students came forward with their own stories, breaking their own silence, and looking for help. Shame was forcing us to suffer in silence. Survivors often feel the responsibility to share their stories with the public to alleviate the shame and suffering other survivors are facing. I invite you to use this month to learn more and use your voice to bring this issue out of the shadows. I invite you to start by learning the story of Gisèle Pelicot.
Gisèle’s story is an incredibly important and difficult one to discuss. Many of the headlines about her story use words like, “Horrifying” and “Unspeakable.” But Gisèle intentionally decided to make her trial public. We have a responsibility to resist the urge to turn away and to speak about the realities Gisèle is asking all of us to face.
When I first learned about drug facilitated rape and sexual assault I had a certain idea in my head about who experiences drug facilitated rape and who perpetrates it. Like many others, I pictured a young woman at a club or a bar who was targeted by a young man who slipped a drug into her drink and lurked in the shadows until she became visibly incapacitated and separated from her friends. I pictured the many parties I attended in high school and college where we, the folks who identified as women, were warned to watch our drinks and never go to the bathroom alone. Implicit in that advice was that it was our responsibility to prevent our own victimization.
In that first training I learned about a story that debunked the stereotype I had in my head. This story was very similar to Gisèle’s experience, of an elderly woman whose husband brought her a cup of tea every night; a cup of tea that was spiked with a tasteless and odorless drug that rendered her unconscious and enabled him to assault her every night. Like Gisèle, this survivor assumed that the physical and mental symptoms she began to experience were symptoms of aging and possible dementia. Her husband- her abuser- attended medical appointments with her and expressed concern over what seemed to be her declining health. In both of these cases you see how sexual, psychological, and physical abuse can intersect and impact not only their victims but their entire families. These abusers intentionally and constantly used the trust their spouses had in them to violate them. It is heartbreaking.
Many are shocked not only by the details of Gisèle’s case but, perhaps even more so, by her decision to be public about her identity. Every day of the trial she walks into a courtroom filled with men her husband recruited to sexually assault her while she lay unconscious. Some of these men are strangers, others are people she knew or would see around town. All of them joined her husband in assaulting and dehumanizing her and any and all shame belongs with them. And yet, the shock many feel about her decision to come forward implies that it is Gisèle who should be ashamed.
When I worked for rape crisis centers I supported people of all ages who had experienced sexual violence. It was not unusual or uncommon to support someone who had been assaulted by their spouse or dating partner. Because I was at a rape crisis center, the survivor came there because they wanted- or needed- to talk about the sexual abuse they experienced in that relationship. However, when I worked for domestic violence organizations I found that while many survivors had experienced sexual violence, this was often the last form of abuse they would disclose. There was additional shame and stigma a DV survivor felt about their experiences of sexual violence. Sexual violence in an intimate or committed relationship is seldomly talked about or recognized. We would hear survivors, hesitant to disclose, ask cautiously, “Is it possible to be raped by your partner? Have you ever heard about that?” It was imperative that we didn’t wait for survivors to know it was okay to talk about- we needed to address it proactively in our initial meetings with them by explicitly saying that many survivors experience different forms of abuse including sexual, and that all of those experiences are valid and okay to talk about with us.
There are dozens of women who attend the trial in France to applaud as Gisèle walks by. Many of them hold signs that say “We are all Gisèle.” The stereotypes about who experiences sexual violence are often based in a desire to believe that sexual assaults are isolated incidents. We want to believe that we could never be sexually assaulted and so we shame and judge people who experience it because it’s easier to say that they did something wrong to bring it upon themselves than to believe they did nothing wrong and acknowledge that this is an issue that can impact us all. Gisèle is asking us all to shift the blame to where it belongs. She’s asking us to talk about the uncomfortable truths so that we can move towards accountability and prevention. She’s making her story public in the hopes that no one else will have to go through this thinking they’re alone. May we all be inspired by her courage and challenge ourselves to learn and share her story this Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
