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submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

They line up in front of a courthouse in southeastern France, from morning to evening, and have gathered in the thousands in cities across the country. They hold signs reading, "one rape every six minutes," "not all men but always a man," and "giving in is not consenting."

They chant: "Rapist we see you, victim we believe you."

Women across France are rallying in support of Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old reluctant icon whose husband is on trial in the city of Avignon for systematically drugging her and inviting dozens of men, 50 of whom are now his co-defendants, into their home to rape her over nearly a decade.

The shocking case has sparked what many women in France call a long-overdue reckoning over "rape culture" and systemic sexism in the way the judicial system handles sexual violence.

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[-] Fox@pawb.social 198 points 1 month ago

not all men but always a man

Pointless sexist bullshit and wrong on its face. I never understood the drive some people have to paint abusive behavior as exclusive to men.

[-] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 89 points 1 month ago

Exactly. If anything, signs like these drag the attention away from the actual issue.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago

And pray tell, what exactly is the "real" issue?

[-] Ifera@lemmy.world 64 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Men and women being victims of sexual abuse, perpetrated by both men and women. It is not a genderlocked issue.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sexual-victimization-by-women-is-more-common-than-previously-known/

[-] Doomsider@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago

From your article, "In fact, 96 percent of women who report rape or sexual assault in the NCVS were abused by men."

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago

Those are the kinds of numbers that come from laws defining rape as penetration and then only counting convictions.

Kind of like how the US had zero married women that were victims of rape by their husbands when it wasn't a crime for husbands to rape their wives.

[-] affiliate@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago

that quote you gave was taken entirely out of context. here’s the very next sentence:

In presenting our findings, we argue that a comprehensive look at sexual victimization, which includes male perpetration and adds female perpetration, is consistent with feminist principles in important ways.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No but the number of assaults by men far outweigh the number by women. And that Scientific American article is just your way of brushing off the fact that men are the primary offenders when it comes to sexual assault. You are exactly like the gun enthusiasts who throw the statistics on mental illness as the true cause of gun deaths and not the guns they use.

Edit: Just cause you seem to be including that link everywhere you post here I'm going to include this link to the 2024 study of sexual assault in France.

https://www.statista.com/topics/8875/violence-against-women-in-france/#topicOverview

[-] JustARaccoon@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago

"Primary" does not mean "always" however

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Oh yeah, you got me there. Statistically small number of women who commit sexual assault completely absolves all men of being complicit in the sexual assault committed by mostly men. We definitely have to correct our perceptions on that one. Sure okay.

[-] IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTION@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago

hey as a guy who was assaulted, please stop saying all men are complicit. do you understand what you're saying when you say that?

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

You are basically validating the people who are trying to dismiss the assaults by men by using the "women do it too!" defense.

I'm sorry for what happened to you and you deserve justice and support. But so do the literally millions upon millions of women who have been assaulted by men who are basically ignored or intimidated by our society into staying silent about their experience.

[-] IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTION@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago

incredibly ironic. how can you dismiss assault and say I'm the one dismissing it? jesus please get a grip and get off the fucking internet. why did I even try?

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

If you actually read my comment you'll notice I did not dismiss anything.

[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 31 points 1 month ago

Just stop and go away, please. No one wants to read your bigotry around here, you're not impressing anyone.

[-] TSG_Asmodeus@lemmy.world 32 points 1 month ago

Sorry you're getting this reaction. I am a man who was abused by women and all the support groups lead to me taking to a room full of women about it. Do men come forward less often? Yes. It would have to be like 1 in 100 men coming forward for it to be equal. I've had one other male friend who has been assaulted, but over half of the women I've been friends with have.

If it helps anyone with that being anecdotal, you have to look at the statistics of who is doing it: people in power. Just that alone means more men simply have the opportunity. Add to that that men are told sex is power, and that men who have sex often are virile, whereas women who do are slut shamed. It's getting better, but still far off.

Anyway I'll take the downvotes, but every statistic we have shown is that men are the primary antagonist in the vast majority of sexual assault against both men and women.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

I'm sorry you were abused and I really wish this were a world where this sort of thing didn't happen.

[-] TSG_Asmodeus@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Well the idea with protests like this is to shine so bright a light on it that we force governments to act. If we do that enough, we can make this happen less and less to everyone.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

As many of the comments in this post have demonstrated, far too many people are more interested in whataboutism and not very interested in creating true accountability. Until we overcome this bias I don't know if we're going to be able to really hold governments accountable for this sort of thing. When women talk about the patriarchy, this is what they're referring to.

[-] Ifera@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Personally, I would imagine that the real issue with THIS ARTICLE is the picture they chose to forefront it. Why would they choose that one? Rage engagement, to drive engagement and ad revenue, because it has been proven time and time again, that divisiveness brings money. There is a lot of coverage about her and her bravery, as it should be, because she is a massive hero.

If we choose any other posts about the case, that don't drive themselves on such divisiveness, and and consider the top comments, we can see that the focus is where it should be, on her story and his conviction, yet they rarely get as much engagement as this one.

It is manufactured ragebait to feed the algorithm, using divisiveness as its drive. And it is both succeeding, and taking away from the real point, her story and the support and help that she, and all rape victims deserve.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Yeah the problem is the picture on the article and not the men on here who took immediate offense to it instead of paying attention to the actual message and problem. Which is rampant sexual assault that is basically being ignored by the authorities and society at large.

This woman was unknowingly raped by more than 50 men (possibly hundreds) over god knows how long. All orchestrated by her husband. Some of those people were supposedly highly respected individuals and yet not one of them saw anything wrong with what they were doing.

But your anger is with the woman holding up a sign saying "not all men but always men". You are exactly like the people who took umbrage at the black lives matter protests because they were saying "black lives matter" and not "all lives matter". To be blunt, you're missing the message. Not because you don't actually get it. But because you don't want to.

[-] jumjummy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Holy shit, take a breath, calm down, and go touch grass. Funny that you see no problem with generalizations like “always a man”, but fail to see the irony in your response. Do more men than women commit sexual violence/asssaults? Absolutely. Is it ALWAYS a man who is the one committing this crime? Absolutely not.

Your constant refusal to even acknowledge this fact is why you’re not convincing anyone of your points.

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[-] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

So how exactly am I complicit for some dude raping someone? Just because I have a penis? And are all women completely exempt or are all women also complicit?

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[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 month ago

Sexual assault is bad. Apparently you disagree.

[-] bstix@feddit.dk 9 points 1 month ago

Reading the article, it says that both men and women attended the protest against rape culture in France, so the real issue is that France has a rape culture. People vs culture.

This comment section however is about a few of the signs that a few of the protesters carried, and/or the comments from the self proclaimed feminist representative who says they'll use these protests to promote their own agenda. That's different, because that's a gender issue. Men vs. Women.

I understand why some people are annoyed by that, because it splits the people instead of uniting them against the primary enemy: The culture.

Anyway this is just a lemmy thread, and it doesn't matter who is right, but it shows that even talking about it is a distraction from the "real issue", because while we are discussing signs and rape statistics, nobody is talking about the rape culture.

I don't know exactly what the feminist representative wants to do, or if she has a point, but I do believe that we need to be able to unite both men and women to speak freely against the culture, because rape culture is enabled by people who don't speak about it. Alienating half of them is bad timing in that regard. To stop rape culture we need both men and women to speak against it.

I hope this makes sense. This thread has gone completely off the rails..

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago

The number of sexual assault victims in France increased by 33% in 2021 and nearly doubled from 2017, according to a government report. Women made up 89% of rape victims, while 96% of sexual violence perpetrators were men.

Oh yeah, that 4% of sexual assaults being committed by women that are being totally ignored by the media is the REAL problem.

[-] hakase@lemm.ee 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I can't speak for how their "sexual violence" criterion is defined, but as for the "rape" statistic, most western countries (France probably included) define rape for reporting purposes as "forced penetration", specifically excluding "forced envelopment" from the statistic, and thereby excluding practically all male rape victims with female perpetrators from crime statistics.

For example, here are the statistics for sexual violence in the year 2011, according to the CDC (note that these are for the US, and may be significantly different for France, though the reporting method is likely the same - there's also a 2013 CDC report with effectively the same numbers for the US):

an estimated 1.6% of women reported that they were raped in the 12 months preceding the survey. The case count for men reporting rape in the preceding 12 months was too small to produce a statistically reliable prevalence estimate.

And

The percentages of women and men who experienced these other forms of sexual violence victimization in the 12 months preceding the survey were an estimated 5.5% and 5.1%, respectively.

Added together, we see that 7.1% of women and 5.1% of men reported being victims of sexual violence in 2011. That is, 58% of victims of all sexual violence in 2011 were women, and 42% were men. For every 3 female victims, there were 2 male victims.

Now on to the frequently cited claim that more than 95% of perpetrators are men. From the "Characteristics of Sexual Violence Perpetrators" section about a third of the way down, keeping in mind the percentages above:

For female rape victims, an estimated 99.0% had only male perpetrators (more on this later...). In addition, an estimated 94.7% of female victims of sexual violence other than rape had only male perpetrators.

And

For male victims, the sex of the perpetrator varied by the type of sexual violence experienced. The majority of male rape victims (an estimated 79.3%) had only male perpetrators. For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims had only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (an estimated 82.6%), sexual coercion (an estimated 80.0%), and unwanted sexual contact (an estimated 54.7%). For noncontact unwanted sexual experiences, nearly half of male victims (an estimated 46.0%) had only male perpetrators and an estimated 43.6% had only female perpetrators.

To help us with the breakdowns of these numbers, earlier in the report we find that:

1.7% of men were made to penetrate a perpetrator in the 12 months preceding the survey [and] an estimated 1.3% of men experienced sexual coercion in the 12 months before taking the survey [and] an estimated 1.6% of men having experienced unwanted sexual contact in the 12 months before taking the survey [and] an estimated 2.5% of men experienced this type of victimization (noncontact unwanted sexual experiences) in the previous 12 months

So, of the 1.7% of made to penetrate male victims, 82.6% of perpetrators were female. Of the 1.3% sexual coercion, 80% of perpetrators were female. Of the 1.6% unwanted sexual contact, 54.7% were female, and of the 2.5% noncontact, 43.6% were female.

So, 1.4% of the 1.7% made to penetrate, 1% of the 1.3% sexual coercion, .9% of the 1.6% unwanted sexual contact, and 1.1% of the 2.5% noncontact.

So, 4.4% of the 7.1% of men reporting sexual violence had female perpetrators. That is, 62% of sexual violence against men is committed by women (in 2011).

So, going back to our numbers above, we see that 62% of the 42% of sexual violence with men as victims was committed by women.

Our final numbers are: 74% of sexual violence in total in the US is committed by men, and 26% is committed by women. Which ain't great, but that feels a lot more realistic than "95%", and it's a far cry from the intentionally misleading numbers you're citing.

BUT IT GETS WORSE...

What happens when we look at just rape? Note that first we have to figure out what the CDC means by "rape", because at first "99% of rape is committed by men" looks pretty damning.

Well, "rape" is defined by the CDC for the purposes of this study as "completed or attempted forced penetration or alcohol- or drug-facilitated penetration". That is, only being penetrated counts as rape.

Men, on the other hand, get the completely separate category "made to penetrate", that is, "being forced to have sex with someone, just doing the penetrating instead of being penetrated."

So, 99% of rapists are men because rape is intentionally defined as "being penetrated" to exclude male victims of rape from the statistics. I wonder why...

Well, what happens when we actually look at those numbers, counting "made to penetrate" as, y'know, rape, because it is rape?

an estimated 1.6% of women (or approximately 1.9 million women) were raped in the 12 months before taking the survey

And

The case count for men reporting rape in the preceding 12 months was too small to produce a statistically reliable prevalence estimate.

Which is, again, because male rape victims are effectively excluded from this definition. Also, we have this:

an estimated 1.7% of men were made to penetrate a perpetrator in the 12 months preceding the survey

And

Characteristics of Sexual Violence Perpetrators For female rape victims, an estimated 99.0% had only male perpetrators. In addition, an estimated 94.7% of female victims of sexual violence other than rape had only male perpetrators. For male victims, the sex of the perpetrator varied by the type of sexual violence experienced. The majority of male rape victims (an estimated 79.3%) had only male perpetrators. For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims had only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (an estimated 82.6%), sexual coercion (an estimated 80.0%),

Note that these numbers clearly show that made to penetrate happens just as much each year as "rape". This means that fully half of rape victims are men (in 2011 - the number fluctuates in the other years of the study, but not more than 5%).

Finally, if 99% of rapists are men and 83% of an equal number of "made to penetrators" are women ... then an estimated 42% of the perpetrators of nonconsensual sex (that is, rape) in 2011 were women.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I think it's important to debunk this sort of misandrist misinformation.

Edit: Here's a Time article that confirms these numbers. They also mention that boys under 15 are more likely to be sexually assaulted than women over 40, and are more than twice as likely to be assaulted as girls under 15. Again, this may be different for France, but it's pretty damning for the US.

[-] Fox@pawb.social 25 points 1 month ago

I'm not out to debate the statistics of "REAL problem" with you. I'm pointing out that it's counterproductive (and I believe morally wrong) to tell survivors they're unworthy because their abuser was a woman. I get the feeling some people care more about gendering this issue than they do about about victims of abuse.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

Yeah literally no one is saying that a victim of sexual assault is unworthy of anything because their assaulter is a woman and not a man. We're talking about the issue of men thinking it's okay to sexually assault because it's almost never fucking prosecuted.

Bringing up the statistic of female perpetrators is simply a way of deflecting the responsibility of men to acknowledge and hold accountability to their fellow men who commit sexual assault.

I've said it elsewhere in this thread but this is exactly the same as the gun enthusiasts bringing up mental illness statistics as a way of absolving guns of their role in gun violence.

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 month ago

The police who recite such stats in my area don’t consider me a victim of my repeated assaults, specifically because of my gender. I guess I should probably pipe down and stop being so uppity and hysterical though. After all my private parts are outside of my body so they’re basically asking to be used by anyone.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I don't know where in the stats I quoted it said anything about dismissing male victims? In fact that statistic includes male victims because most sexual assault on males is committed by other males. Now if you were assaulted by a woman I'm sorry and that's terrible, but the fact is that it's a rarity in comparison to the acts committed by men. But all should be treated with equal seriousness. And none of it is, because men are in power and they don't tend to consider rape or sexual assault a "real" crime.

[-] Kalysta@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago

You being downvoted shows that men are never going to listen to women about this.

96% of perpetrators are men. It’s a statistic that goes against their “women are abusers too!” defense they have to protect their own egos from the reality that one of their friends is likely an abuser.

[-] discount_door_garlic@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

96% of perpetrators are men. It’s a statistic that goes against their “women are abusers too!” defense they have to protect their own egos from the reality that one of their friends is likely an abuser.

literally rape apology from you here.

The provocative and stupid sign in the article has completely derailed a potential discussion about fixing this problem and the exact nature of the problem - because it says something that denies anybody experiencing something outside it's narrow statement their lived experience. It's also not a men vs women issue - there are women that are assaulted by other women, who are equally silenced by this stupid sign. If you believe that a single rape is one too many (as any person on the fucking planet should), then explain to me how 4% of all rapes simply don't matter - and how it isn't offensive at a movement which is borne of abuse victims fighting against the system that facilitates it, and silences victims - to not only completely disregard men that have been victims of women (or women which have), but to then say that anybody who highlights the fact that rape can be perpetrated by a woman, even if it isn't the majority of the time - must therefore be a rapist or friend of one. Fuck that noise.

stop making dumbass generalisations that paint those of us who make active choices to support women and act decently, being an ally as "probably having rapist friends" because of our gender - like seriously what the actual fuck is wrong with you?

Nobody is denying that the majority of rapes are men against women, but the disgusting attitude you have here that all men are automatically rapists, when there are people that want to fix this culture and stop the problem - but stupid nonsense like this pushes so many people down the alt-right pipeline and sets the entire movement back decades. Literally all you have to do to defuse this entire fucking issue is acknowledge male victims instead of pretending they don't exist, and then link arms with them when they support the same reflections and changes to society and behaviour - instead it's been turned into a stupid 'men vs women' fight by people that assume all people of one gender are perpetrators and all of another are victims, instead of the much more simple universal truth that rape is evil and you should just be able to accept that without adding qualifiers.

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[-] gcheliotis@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago

I guess it’s sometimes done in the spirit of forcing men to really consider their actions, because most of the men I know tend to think abusive men are always other men. And we usually have plenty excuses for our own abusive behavior. So it is like saying: “no, stop with the excuses, the problem is you”, in the hopes that this message will also reach its intended audience, ie the many men who are abusive to women in one way or another and, largely, in denial.

But I agree, these kinds of slogans annoy the hell out of me too and are totally not helpful in more ways than one, e.g., when men seek protection from abuse. I guess there are better ways of making a more forceful point about holding men accountable.

[-] Fox@pawb.social 30 points 1 month ago

most of the men I know tend to think abusive men are always other men

I'm sure most if not all abusers are in denial and don't consider themselves abusers, but this slogan gives a pass to ones who happen to be women by insisting that they don't exist at all.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

I don't think that slogan communicates what you're saying here well, if at all

[-] Kalysta@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

Maybe it was the 50 men that raped this woman?

Women rapists are more rare. And comments like this only serve to promote rape culture. Maybe stop and think of how many women are hurting before you start screaming sexism and then maybe women will listen to your point of view.

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this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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