This March 8, 2021, Day of the fight for women's rights, the newspaper Liberation has chosen to give a voice to a rapist and to put it on the front page. An incomprehensible editorial choice.
It all started in February 2021, when a wave of testimonies swept away the students of the Institutes of Political Studies. The first speech is from a young woman, Alma, who recounts the rape she suffered at the hands of her boyfriend in April 2019, her distress afterwards, and her deteriorating mental health. in general indifference. This testimony triggers more and more others about sexual violence and the culture of rape, which prevails in the world of higher education as elsewhere. Alma and others have since strongly denounced this omerta and its mechanisms.
On a YouTube channel she created in February 2021, she speaks openly about the minimization of this crime and the danger of portraying rapists as separate people. "Samuel, he's a rapist, but he's not just a rapist, he's Samuel (…) He's not just that, he's loved, respected by his family and friends, even by me", she says. In another video, Alma calls out to her rapist: "Samuel, testify, please." This is what the young man did, first by writing a letter to Alma, then by publishing his testimony in Release. And it is this letter that we find this March 8 in the front page of the Liberation. On the day of the international struggle for women's rights, why give such a place to a man, who in addition recognizes being a sexual aggressor? But the timing is not just in question …
A letter of justification (which denies being one)
What is this text? Liberation calls it "loud and disturbing" and explains that the author "describes precisely the personal, cultural and social determinants that were involved in the commission of his act. He does not justify himself, does not self-flag, does not discard, he explains. And to explain is not to excuse". But if the author offers an analysis of the culture in which his act is inscribed, that which trivializes sexual violence, especially in cultural productions, he himself anchors his testimony in this tradition, by romanticizing and justifying the rape that 'he committed. "My relationship with (Alma) was passionate, without limits or safeguards, extreme. Exactly what I loved. The intensity it gave me almost made me forget my flat and monotonous life," he writes, selling the story of a love that is not a piece of context, but an "explanation" of his act. The young man also evokes the fact of having been raped himself as a child and of being socialized as a man, as if to free himself from guilt. Finally, he describes rape as a form of sex drive, not for what it is: an act of domination. We swim well, no offense to Libé, in the midst of a rape culture.
Samuel, an ally of feminism?
Samuel doesn't just talk about himself: he also denounces the systemic aspect of his crime. Which would be daring … if all this work had not already been courageously done by feminists, decades ago. A work that he makes invisible by being the bearer of the message. It is all the more effective when the author uses the feminist rhetoric ("rape culture", "Free listening", "My interest in issues of gender, sexuality, masculinities and even domination") and handles writing inclusive, thus speaking as a model ally rather than a woman abuser. All this on March 8, and we will taste (or not) the irony of this editorial choice.
While it is important for everyone to be aware of the fact that rape is trivialized, it is disturbing that this truth takes on new weight when spoken by a "repentant" abuser. However, when we do the accounts, what does this text add? When Samuel writes "All violence is linked and is by us. This speech is not fatalistic, but disturbs because it brings us back to the same human community that produces the worst acts. We therefore have the full power to change things.", his point of view does not add anything really new: as feminists repeat, at the cost of great violence and recently, of real censorship on social networks, men violate (more than 90% of the culprits are male). And yes, a collective and individual effort remains essential to stem the problem, but what is the point of saying that one has raped once the crime has been committed? Even if he tries to show that, thanks to his text, he will make the difference and that he positions himself as an ally in the fight against rape, Samuel is only perpetuating this system, with one nuance: he has the cultural and social background to be able to have a text published on the subject.
A word to the culprit
And what message is sent when giving a voice to an abuser, even repentant, even with the victim's consent? At Liberation, Alma explains: "Victims choose not to listen to their rapist, not to leave space for their words. It is their choice and I respect it deeply (…) For my part, I wanted my rapist to admit what he did to me, damn it! Provided that the roles are not reversed: the rapist who speaks must not become a hero, because he is doing his mea culpa. Let's be clear." Putting it in One, placing it in the spotlight, is therefore paradoxical to say the least. Not to mention the title of the letter: "I raped, you raped, we raped" which, if addressed to everyone, masks the fact that it is men and not women who are guilty of this crime in the vast majority of cases. Or is it aimed only at men and therefore forgets that the readership is also made up of women (unless for Liberation, women are men like any other?).
In short, as several feminist activists wrote on Twitter, nothing is right in this text of justification, published on March 8, which locks men and those who have been victims of sexual violence in a form of determinism: they cannot escape about becoming rapists, even if they are educated on gender issues. If we were evil, it looks like this letter looks very much like a backlash, this backlash that feminists take in the face after any progress (at random, the second #MeToo wave that France is experiencing). Or maybe the idea was to create a dialogue between the two "parties" involved? In which case, it is a failure: this "letter from a rapist" only widens the gap between those who struggle and those who call themselves allies. We would be fine, today like every other day.