Gisele Pelicot’s ‘descent into hell’ shows once again why women are so furious

The phrase “angry woman” is bandied around as some kind of insult; spat out in the same breath as “angry feminist” or “bra burner” or “calm down, dear”. We’re meant to feel ashamed by the accusation, timid, cowed. We’re meant to retreat into ourselves and shut up. Well, not anymore.

Angry woman? You bet. We are livid. I, personally, am baseball-bat-to-a-glass-window furious that in the past week alone, we’ve seen headlines describing an incredibly courageous woman – Gisele Pelicot – whose life as she knew it disintegrated in 2020 when she discovered her husband had been drugging her and inviting strangers to rape her for years in her own home, while filming it – as “taking public revenge on men”. It’s not revenge to tell the truth. It is bravery. It is justice.

Her husband Dominique Pelicot, 71, does not deny the allegations, though the trial continues. Some (but not all) of the 50 other defendants do deny taking part in the alleged rapes – which were orchestrated by “invitation” via a website, now closed down.

Gisele, now 72, waived her right to anonymity as an act of defiance, telling the court in Avignon – now witness to the most unthinkable, sickening accounts of domestic violence, rape and violation; with the kind of details that could feasibly feature in a (male-directed) torture porn plot – that she hopes her testimony might help spare other women from similar ordeals.

Her daughter, Caroline Darian, told the same court of the women’s “descent into hell”, in which “you have no idea how low you will sink”.

Gisele has said she pushed for the trial in open court in solidarity with other women who go unrecognised as victims of sexual crimes. Hear, hear. Gisele Pelicot isn’t “just” a survivor. She is a hero. She speaks for angry women everywhere.

And there are lots of us. Millions. We are incensed, this week alone, by the killing of Ugandan Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died at her home in Kenya after being doused in petrol, allegedly by her ex-boyfriend.

We are disgusted by the fact that she’s by no means the first – that yes, her status as an athlete might have given her case more attention, a deserved outcry; but what of the hundreds and thousands of other women whose voices aren’t heard? Whose voices – as is the case in Afghanistan – will now quite literally never be heard, thanks to the oppressive, deeply misogynistic ruling of fearful and pathetic men granted too much power.

What happened to Rebecca Cheptegei is a trauma. A devastating violence. But it’s by no means an isolated case. In Kenya, femicide has increased by 50 per cent in the past 10 years alone, a trend specialist journalists have been pointing out since January and the rest of us – shamefully –?have neglected to highlight.

The BBC World Service staff gender and identity correspondent Megha Mohan, who has been looking into these cases for months, puts it thus: “These stories should be allowed to be told before a famous woman is killed.” She’s right.

We should all have the right to tell our stories. If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine: but I’ll warn you, you’ll have heard them before. Because what is being a woman if not entirely banal and familiar tales of abuse?

Anecdotes, honed to being “almost funny” (if they weren’t so utterly tragic): of exes who filmed us in bed without our permission; who abused us and called it “love”; who gave us the silent treatment when we dared ask to be treated as we deserved; who lied and cheated and (in one former lover’s case) created an entire double life in which he was “single” and had “moved out” when in fact he was living with his long-term girlfriend the entire time. Yawn – I told you. You’ve heard it all before.

Or, take the stories of the women I know: many of them assaulted; some raped; all lied to. The men who forced them to get abortions so they wouldn’t get found out for cheating; the ones with wives and girlfriends at home; the jealous and controlling ones; the ones treating their partners like slaves; those who weaponise their mental health to get away with whatever they can.

I will never forget the famous man who stuck his hand up my skirt at the Baftas, or the guy who groped my crotch when I was walking along the street, visibly pregnant. Or the (multiple) men who flashed me when I was in my school uniform, aged 12 or 13. Abuse so commonplace that I’ve reached a point where if a female friend tells me they haven’t been groped by a stranger, that’s the one time I’m truly shocked.

An acknowledgement at this point: nobody, arguably, needs another white woman talking about everyday injustice. Already, we are at a point of deep disparity: where certain voices are amplified and others diminished; where the experiences of a few are treated as somehow “more important” or are used as a “call to action” while others linger, forgotten, barely making the front page.

But what I can offer is this: an everyday expression of solidarity and a shared, palpable sense of rage. A commitment, even at a personal level, to not “stay quiet” and hushed. To keep talking and shedding light on what women – all women – are overwhelmingly facing at the hands of men. To emulate the brave and heroic actions of Gisele Pelicot.

And as we hear high-profile calls from the likes of Andrew Tate, Donald Trump or Elon Musk and his pathetic call for “high status males” to run the world (newsflash: they already are), it feels more vital than ever to speak up. As the writer Caroline Criado Perez put it in her newsletter this morning: “To [these] men, I have a question: why are you not talking about it?”

Yes, women are angry. The real question is: Why aren’t you?