How survivors are reclaiming power

Content warning: Mentions of rape, sexual assault, and violence.

Survivors of sexual assault and rape often have to grapple silently with feelings of shame. 72-year-old Gisèle Pelicot is flipping the script: Placing the shame on the perpetrators of sexual assault and rape.

In November 2020, Pelicot’s husband Dominique was found to be taking photos of women’s skirts at a supermarket in southeastern France. When police subsequently searched his laptop, they found that Dominique had taken over 20,000 videos and photos of his decade-long sexual abuse of his wife. For nearly 10 years, Dominique drugged his wife unconscious and invited dozens of men to rape her. 51 of the 83 men identified in Dominique’s videos—aged 26-74—are standing trial: firefighters, journalists, students, truck drivers, prison guards, nurses, retirees, and city councillors. These were men who were going home to their wives, tucking their kids into bed, typing at their work desk the next day, treating patients, and more, all after raping Pelicot.

Pelicot waived her legal right to anonymity in the trial, which prevents the media from identifying survivors of sexual abuse. She wants the world to know her name, and to expose the identities of those who assaulted her. Revolutionarily, she has allowed videos of the rapes to be made public, forcing the rapists to have their faces known for their crimes.

Katherine Zien, an associate professor dually appointed in the Department of English’s Drama & Theatre and Cultural Studies streams, spoke to why theatre’s live format might make it especially effective at engaging audiences with political and social issues. While reading a book, watching a movie, or looking at a painting whose content is political can certainly prompt reflection, it is far easier for the viewer to disengage with these forms of media if they have a dissenting opinion, feel discomfort, or even react with disinterest; all they have to do is put down the book, turn off the screen, or walk away from the artwork. By contrast, the tacit social contract of the theatre—the societal norm present in most traditional theatrical spaces that the audience sit quietly, watch the show, and only make noise when it’s finished—dissuades audience members from disengaging with a piece of theatre, even when it explores difficult subject matter.

“I’ve decided not to be ashamed. I’ve done nothing wrong [….] They are the ones who must be ashamed,” Pelicot told the court on Oct. 23.

Pelicot’s courageous decision stands against the guilt and shame that is generally propelled onto survivors of sexual assault and rape. Stigma and ongoing failings of the justice system for survivors of sexual abuse lead to drastic underreporting: Only six out of every 100 cases are reported to the police, but one in four North American women will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime.

80 per cent of assailants are friends and family of the victim, making a large portion of these cases a matter of intimate partner violence (IPV). 44 per cent of Canadian women who had ever been in an intimate partner relationship reported experiencing some kind of psychological, physical, or sexual abuse in the context of an intimate relationship in their lifetime.

Claudine Thibaudeau works as a social worker in clinical support and training atSOS violence conjugale, a non-profit Quebec organization that works to ensure the safety of survivors of IPV.

She explained to The Tribune that the goal of IPV for perpetrators is coercive control—using violent behaviours to gain power over the other in the relationship, taking away their partner’s ability to make their own choices. Thibaudeau argued that there is sexual violence in almost every instance of IPV. Sexual violence in relationships goes beyond isolated incidents of forced sexual intercourse, such as considering involvement in a relationship as a guarantee of consent, demanding a minimum number of instances of intercourse per week, and creating discomfort for the victim if they do not consent to sexual activity.

Thibaudeau also detailed psychological and emotional sexual violence, which includes denigrating the victim’s physical appearance, or otherwise ridiculing the victim sexually, using sexuality to control or degrade the victim, making sexual comments to humiliate the victim in front of others, comparing their sexual prowess to that of previous partners, or threatening to cheat. There’s also sexual gaslighting, which entails making the victim believe that they had previously consented to sexual activity when they had not.

“It can take a very wide array of behaviours. It’s not reported as much because it’s very intimate. A lot of [survivors] feel a lot of shame around sexual violence. It’s hard to talk about because it’s very private, but most victims of partner violence have been through one or the other or many of those [forms of IPV violence] in their relationship. So it’s a very big problem. It affects hundreds of thousands of women and youth in Quebec,” Thibaudeau said.

Thibaudeau explained that IPV can also include instances where a partner crosses a boundary and does not seek to repair the harm they caused.

“Let’s say someone crosses a boundary once—maybe because they weren’t paying enough attention to realize that the other person wasn’t enjoying what was going on. But the second they find out they should be working so hard to fix things, you know, crossing boundaries happens, but the second you’re made aware of it, you stop,” Thibaudeau said.

She also touched on the shame that many survivors of IPV face, often because they did not see the signs of violence earlier in their relationship.

“Violence can be so subtle. There’s no way that anybody can see the violence,” Thibaudeau said. “So victims often feel ashamed, because when they look back, they can see the violence when it started. They can see the subtle behaviour [….] It’s easier to see afterwards, but when you’re in it at the beginning, there’s no way anybody can see it.”

As a result of this shame, it can often be hard for survivors of IPV to leave their situation, or entirely stop seeing their romantic partner after IPV has occurred.

“Of course, leaving a situation and violence is very hard, because very often, when enough fog has been blown away, and you realize what you’re confronted with, and you see the violence,” Thibaudeau said. “The first reason [IPV survivors don’t leave is it] being dangerous. There’s always a potential for danger, and the moment of separation is the most dangerous.”

Furthermore, the effects of violence are reflected in the survivor’s self-confidence.

“[They’ve] been suffering from violence for months, maybe years. [They’re] exhausted. [Their] self-confidence is low. [They] might be confused about [their] rights, about the situation. [They] might have stress-related health issues. [They] may be scared. [….] It makes it even harder to imagine being able to deal with everything that leaving the violent partner means.”

IPV occurrences are even more frequent in spaces where victims and perpetrators experience violence in other areas of their lives. Orsola Torrisi, assistant professor of Social Demography in McGill’s Department of Sociology, researches demographic factors for conflict and violence, family dynamics, gender-based violence, intimate partner violence, and structural determinants in contexts of armed conflict. In her research on determinants of violence in places of active military conflict, she found that violence became normalized in all areas of life, including the domestic arena.

“Especially on the side of the perpetrator, violence becomes the main way in which people think about how they can resolve problems, especially when they are socialized at a very young age in violent settings,” Torrisi explained in an interview with //The Tribune//. “What I was finding especially in this context was that women that were exposed to violence, particularly between the ages of zero and 15 […] were way, way more likely to experience pretty much all types of abuse, but particularly [those considered] more actually visible forms of violence, that is sexual abuse and severe physical abuse from their partners.”

Torrisi also explained that men in military conflict zones justified beating a woman for a variety of reasons.

“In general, a lot of the research that really looks at violence against women, especially in the home in conflict settings, is related and sort of speaks to these more macro-phenomena that occur and that lead people, and particularly the perpetrators, to kind of acquire those attitudes that are much more masculine and much more prone to violence,” Torrisi explained.

IPV is not the only form of sexual violence that young girls and women face. For women like Lexi Good, sexual violence can occur outside the confines of a romantic relationship, leaving lasting impacts. Good shared how she navigated the mental health challenges that followed her assault, particularly in her interactions with men.

“I was diagnosed with PTSD [….] Anytime there was a man walking on the street, I would be convinced they were gonna kill me. I would completely cross the street anytime I saw a man coming my way. I couldn’t really have relationships,” she explained. “I would say I just wasn’t myself in general, and that was the bigger thing. So I was like, ‘Wait, I’m not just crazy. This is a situation that I’m having right now.’

Good also referred to the lack of control that survivors of sexual assault often feel. While she recalls having called friends and family during her assault to attempt to get out of the situation, she later realized that she did not have as much control over that situation as she thought she did.

“You don’t realize how much your life has changed after. This might sound crazy, but the actual experience itself was not nearly as hard as getting out of it or having issues with mental health,” Good said. “I think people want to feel like they’re in control. That’s why they say, ‘I could’ve done this better. I could’ve done that. But it’s my fault.’ Because if it’s your fault, then you have control. And not having control is actually more scary than being at fault.”

Good also remembers realizing that her healing process had begun to impact her closest friends and family. She felt that she wasn’t treating her friends justly, seeing that “people she loved were hurting by watching her hurt.” Especially after moving from the United States to Montreal for school and making all new friends, she wanted to be a responsible friend, who was kind and helpful to others. After a conversation with her then-roommate, she realized she wanted to actively work through her response to the experience, rather than have its issues resurface years later. She recalls talking to other women who had survived sexual assault and rape and realized that they had felt the same mental health pressures that she had.

“I started having a lot of bouts of mental issues that I didn’t know were related to that [experience],” she said. “Then I talked to other women who were just like, ‘Yeah and then I had this kind of manic-like episode.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, that exactly happened to me.’”

Good shared that eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is what helps her continue to process and heal from her trauma. EMDR therapy involves moving one’s eyes in a certain way while recounting/reliving traumatic memories, allowing survivors to process the original event without the fight, flight, or freeze response being activated.

“It’s really great, because you can be like, ‘Oh, now I know it’s not my fault.’ Logically, I understand it’s not my fault, but now that I’m back in a reprocessing state, I can actually go back in time almost, and make that click better,” Good said.

Good encourages all survivors to speak up and reminds them that they are not alone. However, she recognizes that as women especially speak up, men will attempt to silence them.

“I think it’s good for some women to know they’re not alone, but be wary that as women get more of a voice, more men will attempt to say terrible things to shut them down. The strategy of someone commenting ‘She’s not even hot anyway’ […] is strategically meant to prevent women from speaking out about it,” she said. “Look on the bright side—men are saying these things because they know we’re getting ahead. They know they’re getting left behind. As they see women rise in society, they want to push us down because they’re afraid that we’re going forward. If men weren’t afraid of us, they wouldn’t be making comments like this.”

Following Pelicot’s and Good’s examples, more and more survivors are finding ways to free themselves from shame. Shame is an internalizing emotion—it can make us shrink inwards and hide away from the world. Survivors often feel vulnerable, and disappear to protect themselves from further violence. While all of these are valid responses, the actions of women like Pelicot and Good can work to alleviate some of the additional burden on survivors. Regaining a sense of control—through therapy, freedom from violence, and finding community—can lighten the load for survivors, and change the environment for all women around them. Every time a survivor shares their story, the world becomes a better place.

Shame must switch sides, leaving survivors free to heal and placing the blame squarely where it belongs: On the perpetrators.