82 Comments

Rape culture .

They rape us as little tiny girls in our own home . Everyone takes their turn until a lock is put on my bedroom door in my own house .

After therapy as an adult , I get one confrontation in the 1980’s and a giant bottle of Valium from my psychiatrist. That’s the way it was done .

I am swiftly called a liar , disturbed , a chronic victim mentality . I am derided by everyone .

Present day: after they rape us and sexualize us , then we become unfuckable , and different forms of abuse takes place . Financial being the main one , then we are called borderline , drunks , oh she had so much potential …

I’m saying the story now . Thank you for this Kate .

It’s super distressing and uncomfortable.

I am a white privileged woman . I shudder to think what happens to others . I have a degree of agency . Not much but some … I guess I will try and use it .

Expand full comment

I am so, so sorry, Donna. Thank you for sharing ❤️

Expand full comment

Donna- thank you for sharing your story. I, too, am a white privileged woman and I was raped at an ‘exclusive’ members only club by a group of men in suits who were going to ‘cleanse me’ and make me ‘worthy’ of men like them.

Expand full comment

I'm so incredibly sorry. Sending all of my solidarity to you both ❤️

Expand full comment

I am so sorry Lindsey . And I’m mad too . I didn’t have my glasses on and I thought it was Kate’s post . And now I will also beyhive be a Taylor like vigilante shit and know that you aren’t alone .

Shit.. I’m sorry .

Expand full comment

I hate them and if they are still here did they get any consequences? And if they are still here and you want a tayloresque beyhive thing. We got you .

And I’m so mad right now and I’m way TF sorry Kate

Expand full comment

Please use your story when you feel safe enough to share it. This is the area we don’t dare to enter, even in our anger, our rage. I didn’t suffer what you have, but remember a neighborhood boy forcing me to touch his penis. It STARTS in childhood. Our entire culture trains boys to take what isn’t theirs, it educates boys and men on how to get away with rape.

I’m so very sorry you experienced such violence as a precious little girl. Your strength is inspiring, your pain unbelievable in our current and historical story of the US ✨🙏🏻✨

Expand full comment

I'm so sorry, Susan. Sending solidarity and appreciation for your strength as well as Donna's and Lynsey and everyone else speaking out below

Expand full comment

Susan is right . It starts right away and then we know we must dodge it , fight it, ignore it, live with it , be mad about it , and mostly , I have learned unending fear. And I can’t live with that feeling . No one should . No girls women men anyone young boys especially . And when I read Kate manne the floodgates opened . I had the words. A raging post menopausal alcoholic during the Trump years. It didn’t exactly go as planned… ha

Expand full comment

So very sorry to hear that, Donna. No one should ever have to go through anything even remotely close to that sort of horrific hell on Earth!

Expand full comment

My mind is exploding with anger that we have elected a convicted rapist and this country’s willingness to “overlook it”. Your article heightens awareness of the importance of pointing out the rampant disrespect and outright criminal treatment of women in our culture. Keep bringing it to light.

Expand full comment

Appalled, confounded, nauseous, heartbroken, sad, bewildered, spinning spinning spinning, all coming around to the thought, "yeah, this makes total sense. We see it all the time. Yes, it's always been there." The most frightening thing is that one sentence about the results of the election further enforcing trying to make it "ok." I know Gisele's story occurs in France, but I can't forget the headline after the 2016 election, something along the lines of "Never Forget America's Hatred of Women." We always knew it wasn't just here in the US, but the need to be ever vigilant is one takeaway. The second is women always need to be encouraged to protect other women. Who else is going to do it? (I apologize for my many scattered thoughts here. Gisele's story is shattering.

Expand full comment

So true. And the fact that 55% of American men were willing to effectively throw women under the bus by voting for a known misogynistic rapist fascist dictator, really speaks volumes to home much they truly hate, or are at best callously indifferent towards, women. Add in the ones who voted third-party or write-in (and thus threw away their vote, because Kamala was apparently not "perfect" enough for them) or chose not to vote at all, and you're looking at well north of 60%, that is, a solid majority of American men in a society so desensitized that it is has apparently forgotten how to shudder.

Expand full comment

I don’t think she’s on Substack, but KC Davis hosts the podcast Struggle Care, and in her most recent episode interviews Nicole Bedera, a sociologist and author with a Ph.D., who spent a year working with college campus cases and wrote a book about her findings entitled /On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence/. Their conversation was… enlightening, to say the least. I recommend giving it a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/struggle-care/id1643931456?i=1000678872363

Big takeaway for me was that these acts are horrific and unthinkable *and* that they are not limited to people we would think of as deprave or evil: even “good” guys are capable and culpable because we are all victims of patriarchy, and if we keep thinking this is only something purely evil people do, they’re going to keep getting away with it. We have to fight for zero tolerance and real, consistent consequences for perpetrators, and we have to fight for the survivors—we have to believe women.

Expand full comment

Love this book. I blurbed it!

Expand full comment

The podcast is so good too. Thanks for mentioning the episode.

Expand full comment

I just finished this book and it was a tough read (I had the audiobook).

Expand full comment

I used my last Audible credit before pausing my membership to buy it, but haven’t started it.

Expand full comment

thank you for this recommendation.

Expand full comment

I’m reminded of how often “nice guys” whine about how they would treat women “like princesses”- the bit they fail to mention is that the princesses in question are Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Kate. I know the toll it takes to report on these cases and you are right to remind us not to look away.

Expand full comment

I'm not going to say anything new, but I'm so, so tired of the effort made to silence us. I feel exhausted and angry and overwhelmed and all of the time trying to exist in a society where my coworker can get angry and insult me if I mention that society values women less as they age...is this a hot take?

And what would he say if started spouting the realities that women face every single day? The way catcalls make us feel. The way we were taught to sit with our knees together. The claim that some women are "asking for it" because they are beautiful, when in reality, they believe we are ALL asking for it, and if we definitely and very clearly aren't, well then we're "ball breakers."

The way my daughter was told she was dressed "like a whore" by one of her favorite male teachers in high school because she had fishnet stockings on under her ripped jeans.

Every single day we are insulted, threatened, told to stay quiet, in a million and one ways. And men can commit these atrocities and we're told, "But not all men."

I've had enough. We've all had enough. And then a convicted rapist gets elected to the highest office and we are supposed to pretend this isn't directly related to the patriarchy and a culture of violence and rape that TOO MANY men feel entitled to.

I'm just so tired.

But I'm grateful that you wrote this. That you are speaking out. Because enough is fucking enough.

Expand full comment

How can any woman living in America today fail to see herself in this story. How can any man writing about this election fail to see this case as an illustration of the state your mothers, daughters, wives, and friends are now facing because of the re-election of a man who's crowned himself the leader of rape culture. Talk about the preservation of democracy seems premature when our safety is under threat to this degree.

Expand full comment

I agree. One of my daughters was attacked and didn't tell anyone for 2 years. When she told her mother and me we believed her, and supported her. She has lived in pain, stress and anxiety for years now.

Expand full comment

I am deeply sorry to read about your daughter but grateful to know she has a father who supports her. Your energy will spread out to fill the hearts of other survivors!

Expand full comment

Thank you.

Expand full comment

I'm so sorry 💔

Expand full comment

"It’s not for us to have shame—it’s for them." What a profound rallying cry.

Indentured personhood is a profound way to name the reality of the institution of marriage under the patriarchy. This case is such a societal bellwether.

Expand full comment

This is heartbreaking, and you are brilliant. Thank you for not being quiet about this.

Expand full comment

Horrifying, but necessary to disseminate. Rape culture is far more prevalent (hidden as it may be) than most of us realize. I am saddened and appalled by the number of women I know personally who have been raped.

Expand full comment

This was such a difficult but necessary read. When you bring up the point that women conspiring to do this to a man is virtually unthinkable, it really drives home how differently we value humanity by gender.

Expand full comment

Thank you for this Kate. I've been following this case closely hoping that the one good thing that can come out of it is meaningful change. Gisele Pelicot's courage is everything and must be rewarded with widespread reform. I'm not all that optimistic though...

Expand full comment

After reading your article (twice) I am finally pushing past my avoidance and starting to read _Know My Name_ by Chanel Miller. I've been putting off reading that book because I've been afraid of how it'll make me feel. That, I regretfully admit, is indifference. Thank you for helping reframe my perspective.

And thank you for writing this article. It was no doubt a tough one, but that didn't stop you.

With admiration and respect,

Amy Lawson

Expand full comment

it's such an amazing book and journey!!

Expand full comment

That’s a great book and an emotionally difficult read. Another horrific case at elite Stanford University. Channel describes the long term effects as well. Women also need to fight for all women though. If more white women voted to support other women, Trump would not have been elected. Personally, I’ve gone 4B since the election on top of the Dobbs decision.

Expand full comment

Sexually abused at age 3 by the Catholic babysitter and his friends. Rape and sexual abuse is so abhorrent. Maybe prepubescent boys need a little education on why this is so wrong.

Expand full comment

I am so, so sorry. Sending ALL the solidarity ❤️

Expand full comment

What a shattering story. Thank you for writing it. Reading it was hard, writing it had to be much harder and living it ... unimaginable. What a brave woman Gisele is.

Expand full comment