Article content

I’ve written on women’s issues for a long time. Gender-based violence, sexual assault, the #MeToo movement, femicides. I’ve spoken with survivors of post-separation abuse and coercive control. I’ve been on the advisory board for Use the Right Words, a national media guide on how to report on sexual violence, where I mostly benefited from the wisdom of other women’s rights advocates across the country.

Article content

I’ve signed letters addressed to governments urging stricter controls over online threats against women. I’ve woken up in a daze the day after Donald Trump was elected, fearing what his presidency would mean for the steady erosion of women’s reproductive rights in the U.S. If countless sexual assault allegations against him weren’t deal breakers for his voters, were they deal breakers for anyone?

I’ve read — and written — many uncomfortable sentences on these topics over the years and even I wasn’t prepared for the Mazan rapes case that is making horrific headlines around the world. “Soul-crushing” is one way to describe it.

Dominique Pélicot admitted to drugging and raping his wife for over a decade, while inviting close to 100 other men in their community in Mazan, France, to come over and also rape her while she was unconscious.

Among her alleged rapists? A nurse. A paramedic and firefighter. A local councillor. A journalist. People with spouses and children. Most of them living kilometres from her home. Men she most likely crossed paths with at the bank or at the grocery store. One was even her neighbour.

Article content

Man after man after man answered a post to have sex with a non-consenting woman (also known as rape) and when they arrived they found exactly that. Someone passed out, with no agency over her own body. A few left, but police say that not one single man in over a decade reported it to them or made even the most menial of efforts to ensure what many of the accused now claim was “consensual sex play.” Not one.

Women’s rights advocate Julie Lalonde reminded us online that, closer to home, a Canadian soldier was apprehended in 2016 after his girlfriend found a duffel bag full of DVDs showing him raping unconscious women. “Many of the women only found out they’d been raped when the police called them.” Shockingly, he only received an eight-year prison sentence.

Gisèle Pélicot waived her right to anonymity and requested her husband’s trial be made public, in part to raise awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual assault, but also to expose these men’s identities. In doing so, she also showed us how ordinary and “normal” they all were. While victims have a right to privacy, there’s no telling how many women her decision to go public may have saved.

Article content

It’s been a bone-chilling few weeks for women. Between Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei being set on fire and killed by her ex-boyfriend; a former U.S. cop charged with raping his daughter remaining free, while his ex-wife is behind bars because she objected to court-ordered reunification therapy with his other children; the disturbing details of the Peter Nygard case; and the barrage of “not all men” directed at many women who have shared these stories online, I don’t blame women who feel demoralized and scared.

As a society, we still have a hard time connecting the links between femicide and sexual violence and the minimization of misogyny and casual sexism. But there is a connection. Those responding now with “not all men” are part of that minimization, too.

Of course, “not all men,” but way too often only men — and disturbingly, far too many men.

We need to let go of any comforting illusion that we can easily pinpoint the “bad guys” who would rape. We often can’t. We need more consent education and awareness. Those engaging in pointless “not all men” statements aren’t contributing to these necessary conversations — they’re derailing them.

Toula Drimonis is a Montreal journalist and the author of We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants, and Belonging in Canada. She can be reached on X @toulastake

Article content

Article content