Content Warning: This article contains mentions of rape and sexual assault.

A few weeks ago, the harrowing trial of Giséle Pelicot’s abusers concluded. Pelicot was the object of unimaginable abuse and a feminist icon who subverted a system of shame and retold her story with unbelievable dignity and poise.

Around 2020, Pelicot began noticing that her hair was falling out, she was losing weight, and experiencing inexplicable blackouts. Dominique, her husband of nearly 50 years, took her to various clinics, never getting a satisfying explanation. 

Later that year, Dominique was caught in a nearby grocery store using his phone to film under women’s skirts. In response, police confiscated his phone and laptop, where they found pictures and videos of an unconscious woman being raped and screenshots of conversations about raping her.

Eventually, authorities identified that woman as Giséle. The rapists included 51 men, aged from their 20s to 70s, including her husband, Dominique. 

Giséle now had an answer for her mysterious blackouts. She was being drugged by her husband.

Her now ex-husband pleaded guilty. The other fifty men registered differing objections, with some asserting they were also drugged by Dominique Pelicot, others claiming that Giséle was role-playing, and some alleging she had consented.

One abuser was convicted of aggravated sexual assault, the rest of rape. Dominique received the maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, while the rest were given 3-15 years.

As disgusting as this story is, what we will remember from this trial is not these men, collectively dubbed “everyman” by many, but Giséle, who had the courage to make the trial public.

Catherine Porter has noted that in all the years she’s covered rape trials for the New York Times, only one other victim has elected to go public. The option of anonymity given by courts extends a level of dignity to survivors. 

So why did Giséle go public with one of the most awful rape trials in history? 

She told reporters, “I wanted to open the doors of this trial last September so that society could see what was happening. I’ll never regret this decision. I have confidence in our capacity, collectively, to find a better future, in which men and women alike can live harmlessly together with mutual respect.” 

Giséle accomplished all this and more. Giséle’s victorious image can now be seen everywhere–on mock “Person of the Year” covers of Time Magazine, protest posters on the side of French buildings, and on the digital cover of Vogue Germany.

In her New York Times article “The Face of Courage,” Vanessa Friedman captured the scope of Giséle’s impact, describing how she entered the courtroom unashamed as a stylish grandmother. 

Friedman wrote, “Her jacket and coat collars were turned up just so. Often, she wore a white scarf draped around her neck. The colors she chose were sedate, the prints discreet.  She didn’t wear obvious makeup, but she looked well groomed.  She looked recognizable. She looked like what she was: a pensioner and grandmother without pretensions, but with self-respect.” 

Although the public scrutiny of women’s fashion can be off-putting, Friedman’s description serves a deeper editorial purpose. She establishes Giséle’s normalcy as iconic not because she abides by a fashion script prescribed by French culture, but because she defies the appearance of victimhood. 

Giséle’s look was part of the seismic shift that happened during the trial. She became someone, while her abusers became no one, or “everyman.”

But how did this happen? How did her courage subvert a system of shame?  

In 1993, Walter Wink, in “Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination,” argued that Jesus taught a “third-way” response to violence beyond fight or flight. 

Wink cited the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-42), in which Jesus coaches followers on how to respond to violence. Wink exegeted Jesus’ commands to turn the other cheek, offer their cloak, and walk the second mile with profound nuance. He showed that, far from a call to passive acquiescence, these are creative responses that establish the agency and elevate the dignity of the oppressed.  

Turn the Other Cheek

To understand the subversive act of “cheek-turning,” we must know a few things about the mechanics of honor-shame cultures into which the words of Jesus were first spoken.

To begin with, hitting someone with the left hand was prohibited. Left hands were for unclean tasks.  

So, given Jesus’ words in the text that the aggressor has hit you on the right cheek, this would mean they have backhanded you. Backhanding was the proper way for masters to indignify enslaved people and other household dependents. 

But what if, after getting hit, the marginalized person, instead of cowering, offered her left cheek? 

The conundrum for the attacker is then intensified. Not only has the victim responded with fortitude, they have left the oppressor with one option: hitting their left cheek with a slap or fist. These are actions that were usually only exchanged between peers. 

Hence, the victim proposes a response that requires the oppressor to elevate them as a person with status. 

Give Them Your Cloak

The Hebrew scriptures repeatedly prohibited forms of predatory usury (Exod. 22:25-27; Duet. 24:10-13, 17; Amos 7-8; Ezek. 18:5-9). One can imagine a scenario in which a debt collector might come looking for objects of value, including textiles. Only the most impoverished would have their garments as their sole form of collateral. 

Alas, Jesus hypothesizes this particular type of debt collection is occurring. 

His solution was for the person who was poor to up the ante. As an act of prophetic action, they are encouraged to double down by giving their cloak as well. 

This was their last defense against nakedness, which would then become the mechanism by which the predatory behavior is exposed for what it is: taking from the poor what they don’t have to give in the first place. Because of nudity’s taboo role in Hebrew culture, this would shift the humiliation from the prey to the predator. 

Go the Second Mile

The Aramaic phrase Jesus used to paint the picture of being “forced to walk one mile” also occurs when the soldiers “compelled” Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’ cross (Matthew 27:32). The phrase is used throughout secondary literature of the time, which signals how abusive and rampant this problem was. 

The willful volunteering of the burden bearer to a second mile would bewilder the Roman soldier, shifting the sense of power. Wink asks, “Is this a provocation? Is he insulting the legionnaire’s strength? Being kind? Trying to get him disciplined for seeming to violate rules of impressment? Will this civilian file a complaint? Create trouble?” 

In short, the oppressed complicates the oppression. 

Wink offered a bulleted list of third-way tactics. Some of them include asserting one’s humanity and dignity, breaking the cycle of humiliation, refusing to submit to or accept the inferior position, taking control of the power dynamic, and shaming the oppressor into repentance. 

It seems that Giséle Pelicot took a page from Jesus’ playbook and offered a masterclass in non-violent, third-way resistance.

Wink wrote, “To those whose lifelong patterns have been to cringe before their masters, Jesus offers a way to liberate themselves from the servile actions and servile mentality … They can begin to behave with dignity and recovered humanity now, even under the unchanged conditions of the old order.”

As Giséle’s trial continued, the courtroom swelled–not with reporters, but with women. At the end of each day of the trial, these women formed lines to applaud Giséle as she left the courtroom.  

As #MeToo stories continue to be told and testify to the continued presence of the unchanged conditions of the old order of patriarchy, a woman arrived who incited change on a systemic level. She was a woman who defied expectations and took back not just her dignity, but the dignity of survivors everywhere.  

Giséle found a third way.  

 

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