British author and journalist, Catherine Mayer has been a women’s rights activist for many years. In 2015, she co-founded a movement, Women’s Equality Party, of which she was president until last December. “Women’s rights and, more generally, the fight for a better world, have always been part of my life”she confides.
“By refusing to go behind closed doors, she managed to break through the fog of disinformation”
So when she learned of the Mazan rape case, where Dominique Pelicot and around fifty other men accused of having raped Gisèle Pelicot for ten years, she followed the four-month trial with one ear. attentive. “I was a victim of sexual violence myself, in a much less serious way, but it had a huge impact on my life. Besides, I know few women and girls who have never been victims.”
By refusing to go behind closed doors, Gisèle Pelicot has become, in the eyes of many people, including Catherine Mayer, an international figure in the fight against violence against women. At the time of the verdict, and after reading the front page of Time – the magazine for which she worked – designating Donald Trump as personality of the year, she then came up with an idea: launch a petition to ask that the Prize Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded this year to Gisèle Pelicot. She “managed to break through the fog of disinformation by renouncing anonymity to attend the trial of her attackers and testify”writes the British woman in her petition, highlighting the words of the Frenchwoman following the verdict: “I want you to know that we share the same fight. When I opened the doors to this trial, I wanted all of society to witness the debates that took place here. I now have confidence in our ability to find a better future where everyone, women and men, can live in harmony with respect and mutual understanding”.
A petition launched just after the verdict
Thus, for Catherine Mayer, “No one deserves the Nobel Peace Prize more than Gisèle Pelicot”. “She, in her courage, did much more than anyone to shed light on the exact nature of this war on sexual violence against women”. Launched on December 20, the day of the verdict, the petition has since collected nearly 130,000 signatures. Many of the signatory Internet users reacted, like Holly Button explaining that Gisèle Pelicot told her “gives hope that there is a future for equality and respect”. Or again: She “gave a voice to many other victims around the world who, for various reasons, cannot speak out”written for his part by Val Weedon.
-Catherine Mayer confides that she did not try to contact the Frenchwoman. “I launched this petition in one afternoon. I didn’t try to contact her because I didn’t want to bother her or draw more attention to her. I respect his desire, in the context of what happened, to maintain as much control and privacy as possible. So I hope she won’t be mad at me for doing that.”. The author admits that she also did not expect the petition to gain so much momentum. “I wasn’t sure if I could influence the Nobel nomination process in any way, I was just trying to pay homage to him. But anyone who reads the petition will understand what is so extraordinary about what Gisèle Pelicot accomplished by making the affair public”.
Don’t give up the fight
Like the Frenchwoman, Catherine Mayer hopes that the shame will change sides. If she recognizes that the case was controversial, she analyzes this by the fact that the media saw it as exceptional, due to the number of accused. “But it’s the opposite. This is not an exception, this is what happens in these kinds of cases. The person next to you, the person you know, the family member, all can commit sexual violence, which is a risk for every woman, every girl.” This is why she begs not to give up this fight. “We saw something similar happen with the #MeToo movement, which initially got a lot of attention. And then very quickly, there was a sort of violent reaction, where people said to themselves: “Oh, it’s over, you know, we’re sick of all this now”, “this has gone too far ”. No, that’s not true, this movement has only just started. This is the other reason that pushed me to launch this petition”.
The Briton therefore remains hopeful that the message will reach the Nobel Prize committee, while the deadline for proposing a candidate is set each year at January 31.
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