The Woman Who Faced Her Abusers: The Story of Gisele Pelicot

I have two daughters. That is a fundamental issue for me. I believe the world should be better for women because I want it to be better for them. It would be very unfortunate to leave a world worse than the one I was born into. I don't want that to happen. Today in Mexico, there is a woman in the presidency. I may disagree with her ideas, but I find it positive that in a country considered machista par excellence, there is already a woman at the helm. I just hope she shows autonomy from her predecessor and mentor.

In the USA, our northern neighbor, I see a completely opposite trend to what is happening in Mexico, a supposedly very conservative country. It seems that the neighbors do not want a woman at the head of the country for any reason. Twice they preferred to have a nefarious character like Donald Trump. Before that, they preferred to have a man of color or a very old, almost senile man. This gives us a great idea of something that the vast majority of citizens in the USA do not seem to want to allow: a woman leading the country. In short, they beat us in machismo and conservatism.

It's not an easy world for women today. In Mexico, we may have a woman as president, but violence against women does not stop. The case of the "dead women" of Juárez is a clear and chilling example. The opportunity for women to lead a large company is minimal. In the USA, despite great advances, the triumph of Donald Trump seems to point to a setback. It seems that men in the USA are willing to do anything, even vote for someone like Trump, rather than allow a woman to govern the country.

In Europe, things don't seem very different. A few days ago, I read in the news about the case of Gisele Pelicot, which occurred in France, and once again, reality shook me in unimaginable ways, even more than fiction. It wasn't a book by Chuck Palahniuk or a movie by Eli Roth; it was real life. Gisele, a woman, grandmother of 72 years and mother of three young adults, has become an unexpected and unfortunate celebrity in France, where she faces a case of rape against more than 50 men... and her husband, who subjected her to chemical submission, that is, the administration of drugs to leave her unconscious.

The abuse Gisele has suffered dates back more than a decade. The main accused in the trial is Gisele's husband, Dominique, who allegedly offered his wife online for sex. In a relatively relaxed and uninhibited society regarding sex like France, this shouldn't sound scandalous. The gravity of the matter is that on all occasions when more than 80 men had sex with Gisele, she had been drugged and left unconscious by her husband. The relations happened without her consent and without her knowledge. For 10 years, almost a hundred men abused Gisele while she was unconscious. Dominique, her husband, contacted the men and allowed them to be with his wife while he recorded them on video.

It is presumed from the more than 20,000 videos seized by the police from Dominique's computer that more than 80 men responded to Dominique's online ads to have sex with Gisele. Men between 20 and 70 years old abused Gisele without her consent while she was unconscious. "Common and ordinary" men: students, bakers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, firefighters, etc. Common and ordinary men were part of the abuse suffered by Gisele. None of them fit the typical figure of the abusive and violent psychopath. The folder on Dominique's computer where he kept the videos was named "abuse."

The big twist in the trial against Dominique was when Gisele decided not to remain anonymous and to face her husband and each of the abusers. The trial became a media bomb with Gisele as the new face of abuse against women. Despite what she suffered, Gisele saw the trial as a great opportunity to carry out a peculiar rebellion against the abuse women face in France, where only 1% of rapists are punished and where more than 90% of the victims knew their rapists. The trial has taken on epic dimensions, and many point out that it will become the trial of the year, another battle for women against abuse, considering that the defense's arguments aim to point out the "innocence" of the men recruited by Dominique because they thought that both Dominique and Gisele agreed with the events.

The event becomes surreal when the defense seeks Dominique's innocence, alleging a childhood lived among abuses and violations. The defense seeks to spread the image of a Dominique who did commit offenses against his wife but "has been a good father and grandfather." Another grotesque argument of the defense, and perhaps the most controversial, is that the more than 80 men "did not abuse Gisele" because, despite being unconscious during the rapes, Dominique had told them that she agreed.

The case of Gisele Pelicot is shaping up to be one of the most controversial in history. Extreme and sophisticated abuse, a victim determined to face it, not sink into shame, and turn her misfortune into a rebellion against machismo, in addition to the strange premise of the defense, which claims the innocence of more than 80 men who abused Gisele without her consent, just because they believed Dominique.