What Gisele Pelicot’s Case Can—and Can’t

Gisele Pelicot, the 72-year-old woman at the center of the horrifying rape trial that ended on Thursday with the conviction of 51 men, including her husband, has rightly been hailed as a hero. The judicial proceedings, which took place in the southern French city of Avignon and attracted global interest, were held in public because Pelicot was willing to step forward. She agreed to be identified as the victim of a crime that involved her husband drugging her and inviting men to come and sexually assault her. For that and for her conduct during the trial, Pelicot has been called the face of courage and a feminist icon.

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Pelicot is indeed all those things and more. But her case may not be the catalyst for rape victims to come forward that people hope it will. Pelicot’s case was indisputable. Most sexual assault cases are not so clear-cut. It’s possible the Pelicot case has set a threshold of proof so high it might stop survivors from coming forward.

The Pelicot trial was extraordinary in almost every way. She had been (apparently happily) married to her attacker, Dominique Pelicot, for decades when he started crushing massive amounts of sleeping medication into her food and drink. Her husband advertised online for men to come and have sex with his wife via an online forum called “à son insu,” which means “without her knowledge.” Dozens of men—many of them married—turned up at their home to do exactly that, even though in some instances she was so clearly unconscious she was snoring. She grew ill, losing her hair and parts of her memory, but doctors were unable to figure out why.

It was only after Dominique Pelicot was caught snapping upskirt photos of women in a grocery store and the police who impounded his computer found videos of the sexual assaults, that she became aware of what had been done to her over the span of a decade. When the men in the videos were put on trial, many of them protested that it was not rape, because they believed they had consent from her husband.

This line of defense did not wash, and on Thursday the court found 46 of the defendants guilty of rape, two of attempted rape, and two of sexual assault. Dominique Pelicot, who admitted his guilt from the time of his arrest, was given the maximum sentence of 20 years, and his codefendants were given sentences of up to 15 years. Large crowds attended the trial, many of the onlookers holding posters hailing Gisele Pelicot’s actions, and echoing her statement during the trial that “shame had to switch sides” from rape victims to perpetrators.

Research by the U.S. Department of Justice suggests that fewer than half of all sexual assaults are reported to the police. The number has increased in recent years, but shame has a long way to go before it lands on the side to which it belongs. Certainly, the MeToo movement has encouraged more survivors to come forward about their experiences. But a counter-movement among men who feel they are being unjustly accused of sexual assault has also established a narrative that the deck is stacked against them. The result: survivors’ testimonies continue to be doubted, and women continue to doubt the merits of coming forward.

It takes nothing away from Pelicot’s bravery to note that her case was iron-clad and her story was unique. She was older, she had a career, she was unwitting in every way. She was not a young woman at a party, or a sex-worker, or somebody capable of consent. The evidence against the perpetrators was abundant and incontrovertible. Most sexual assaults are not filmed, and if they are, most of those videos are not discovered. (Dominique Pelicot left a folder on his computer’s hard drive marked “abuse.”) For the vast majority of women, whose sexual assaults are less well-documented, coming forward and being public might attract skepticism or victim-blaming.

Hopefully, a woman should not have to be literally unconscious to be safe from the suggestion that she somehow encouraged or did not resist her perpetrator enough, or sent confusing signals, or consented but changed her mind, or was reckless in her dress or behavior, and is therefore somehow complicit in what happened to her. But one swallow does not make it summer. Pelicot’s was a rare case in which there was no possibility that her behavior played a role.

After the trial, Gisele Pelicot told reporters outside the courthouse that she was thinking of her children and the other families affected by this tragedy and also sexual assault survivors everywhere. “I think of the victims, unrecognized, whose stories remain hidden,” she said in French. “I want you to know that we share the same struggle.” She thanked the people who supported her choice to make the trial public, and, perhaps unexpectedly, suggested that the proceedings had given her some hope. “I am now confident in our ability to collectively seize a future in which everyone, women and men, can live in harmony, respect and mutual understanding.” Yet again, that’s a brave choice.

The highly-publicized Gisele Pelicot case may not change the circumstances, and shame, that many survivors of sexual abuse face.