"I've come to venerate Gisèle Pelicot, to applaud her, because this woman is history."

BarcelonaGisèle Pelicot has not yet finished dispensing justice. After the whole world saw the faces of her fifty sexual abusers in a public trialBecause "shame must change sides," she is now touring Europe with two messages as transformative as that one. "Victims must speak out, they must report, they must not isolate themselves: being heard and acknowledged can help you recover," argues this woman who doesn't want to be labeled "a heroine, a symbol, or an icon," but rather sees herself as "a conscience-awakener." "I know where I come from and I know who I am. I'm just an ordinary woman who allowed herself to be supported by psychologists, lawyers, family, associations..." she says.

And the second message is herself, her survival, her determination, and her hope, because it turns out she has a partner again and has "been able to rebuild herself from a field of ruins." "I never would have thought I'd want to fall in love after what I went through," she admits. "But love can knock on your door at any age. I'm 73 years old, and I believe there's nothing as important as loving and being loved."

Just as hundreds of women gathered outside the Avignon court to support her during the three-month trial against "Mr. Pelicot," this Thursday some 400 people, the vast majority women of all ages, attended the presentation at the JV Foix library in Sarrià. A hymn in life (Ara Llibres / Lumen), "to venerate her, to show her our warmth, to applaud her, because this woman is history and has taught us so much, she's given the patriarchy a real beating," commented playwright Carol López, among the audience. At the door there was even a group of Catalan Feminists with the sign they took to Avignon the day the sentence was to be announced, with the phrase "They shall not pass. Thank you, Gisele"A slogan that united 'anti-fascist resistance with resistance against patriarchy,'" explained its president, Silvia Carrasco.

The audience enthusiastically applauded Pelicot's arrival and departure, as she was interviewed by journalist Neus Tomàs. "An act of courage and risk," says Pilar Gómez, who is only a few years older than Pelicot and is here with her daughter Clara. "I've come to thank her, because she is one of the greatest figures in feminism of the last ten years," the writer Anna Manso tells me. "After the concept of sisterhood, the shift of shame is the second great revolution, even if it sometimes comes at a very high cost, and I'm thinking of the victim in the Dani Alves case."

The fall and the reconciliation

“We were 19 and fell madly in love. When you spend fifty years with a nice man and a good father, you can't imagine that a cataclysm will erupt.” Gisèle Pelicot recounts, with surprising serenity and generosity, even the most painful parts of her story. She spent almost ten years visiting doctors, sometimes with her husband, because of inexplicable absences: first, a suspected brain tumor, then Alzheimer's, then a stroke, then she was thought to be going crazy and was diagnosed with anxiety. The case came to light “thanks to two minor characters,” López points out, because a supermarket security guard and a police officer did their jobs properly and investigated a husband who seemed only A dirty old man. Seeing herself in photographs, unconscious, "being mercilessly raped by those unknown individuals," she went into shock and needed hours to process it, until she called a friend—a friend—and blurted out: "Dominic had me raped by 53 men." The most difficult moment of my life.

After some time isolated on the Île de Ré, where she now lives, she made the crucial decision to pursue legal action, even though it meant confronting her attackers, having to watch the videos of her rape, and having to endure these "cowards" accusing her of being an accomplice and an exhibitionist. "My children were devastated; their mother had to stay strong," she recalls. It wasn't easy. "It's not true that misfortunes unite families; misfortune destroyed us. Now we're trying to figure out what to do with the mud that's been dumped on us. I wrote the book to show that we can get back on our feet. My children are on the right path." I think they've finally understood my defense mechanisms: they thought I was just messing with myself."

Pelicot shared at the event that she has reconciled with her daughter and that they will celebrate International Women's Day (March 8th) together this Sunday. Later, she hopes to see her attacker, who was sentenced to 20 years. "I want to go to prison because I have questions. I would like to look him in the eyes and ask him: Why all this? Why did you betray us? Why did you hurt us so much? I would ask him about the photographs of my daughter. And I would say goodbye to him for good."