“To end male domination”, a “road map” signed by more than 200 men, including the writer Gaël Faye, the comedian Guillaume Meurice and the singer Eddy de Pretto, was published online on Saturday by the French daily Releasein reaction to the Mazan rape trial currently taking place in Avignon (south).
A commune in Vaucluse, in the south of France, Mazan was the scene of serial rapes organized by a husband on his wife for years.
Fifty-one men recruited on the Internet by the husband – the main accused in this extraordinary trial – have been on trial since September 2, most of them accused of having raped Gisèle Pelicot, drugged by her husband, over a period of ten years at the couple’s home.
“The Pelicot affair proved to us that male violence is not a matter of monsters, it is a matter of men, of Mr. Everyman,” writes activist and therapist Morgan N. Lucas, who wrote this article.
“To say ‘all men’ is to talk about systemic violence perpetrated by all men, because all men, without exception, benefit from a system that dominates women. And since we are all the problem, we can all be part of the solution,” he continues.
“Let’s stop considering that women’s bodies are bodies at their disposal […] ; Let’s stop navel-gazing and reverse the victim burden […] ; Let’s stop thinking that there is a masculine nature that justifies our behavior; Let’s stop perpetuating boys clubs, protecting our male counterparts,” lists this “road map.”
French actor and director Gilles Lellouche, playwright Alexis Michalik, rapper Vin’s, and caregiver and writer Martin Winckler are among the 200 signatories, according to Release.
The Mazan rape trial, which received a lot of media attention, saw the resurgence of the keyword #notallmen (#notallmen) on social media.
With this expression, Internet users, mostly men, intend to denounce any generalization, believing that it is above all an individual problem and not a systemic one.
“Many say that the trial of the 51 rapists is in reality the trial of masculinity. Many are offended by it, finding it fashionable to be indignant because they are put in the same basket rather than to rebel against the atrocities orchestrated by Dominique Pelicot and endorsed by so many other men,” laments Morgan N. Lucas in his text.
Without naming him, the activist also responds to the comments of actor Vincent Lindon who asked during an interview on France Inter in May for “a road map” to be a better feminist.
“Here it is, given by a man to other men because we’re going to have to stop asking women to do the work for us,” writes the therapist, listing the expected changes in ten points.