What is the Mazan rape trial produced in the existence of women ? What does that do us, as a company, to see and hear “ That »» ? These crimes illustrate the “ banality of evil “, As well as the price to pay to live in the company of men.
Live with men is a book that offers us real -time lighting on Mazan’s rapes. This criminal affair, which has gone around the world, participated in our daily lives for several months, either indirectly via the variety of information channels, either directly for Manon Garcia who decided to go to the courtroom.
The subtitle Reflections Humshines humility to think about sexual violence in their complexity and not under the only prism of rape, which many journalists have been tempted to sum up by summarizing the Pelicot case to a new “ rape ». But unlike the Tonglet-Castellano affair that Gisèle Halimi defended in 1978 to make it the rape trial, the case of Dominique Pelicot goes far beyond the jurisdiction of rape. This book strives to deflate what might seem extraordinary, to focus on the ordinary nature of violence.
See and hear “ That »»
The number of accused and the variety of their profiles prove that, far from being exceptional, these crimes cover major social issues. To enter them, Manon Garcia wanted not to change his method, but his way of writing. The use of “ I »Change nature: it is now on a witness that she speaks to us, but on a witness women that happens to be philosopher.
The idea of the book springs from an empirical experience which is imposed on her in the courtroom: that we are single, mothers, girls, sisters, colleagues or wives, what is such a trial produced in the existence of women ? And that justice can for those who are victims, but also for those related to criminals and whose suffering finds no place where to say ? What does that do us, as a company, to see and hear “ That »» ? What is justice repairs ?
Beauvoir had, at one point, forcing himself to think about what meant to be a woman when writing The second sex. In the same way, Manon Garcia feels the need to think how her way of being a heterosexual woman informs her practice of philosophy. What happens when it comes up against a world where justice, power bodies and law have been set up by men ? The conclusion of the book is pessimistic: far from being monsters, these criminals illustrate the “ banality of evil », That is to say a daily life of sexual violence, shared by the greatest number.
The evidence and figures are formal and they give substance to the concepts. This experience, in the courtroom, gives Manon Garcia an alarming lucidity which pushes her to write this book undoubtedly so as not to switch to the side of hyper-vigilance close to paranoia. Failing to trace a “ conversation Between the sexes which continues to be lacking during the hearing, the philosopher brings out the unthought of consent in certain reasoning of aggressors. Isn’t chemical submission the most extreme form of the refusal of any conversation ? The trial scene thus tests the concepts of submission and domination that the philosopher has theorized in her last two books. More than a practical case, this trial constitutes proof by example. It allows the philosopher to collect and analyze a puff pastry of voice: that of Gisèle Pelicot of course, but also that of the lawyers, the prosecutor and all these accused men who admit more or less naively their criminal desires.
With a lot of caution, the philosopher wonders how to make a neutral use of language so as not to dress the stories of aggression that she retransmits. It is on this point precisely that resorting to literature as well as stylistic tools could help to pin the innmorable. It is not this approach that she retains, but a particularly innovative point of view for her discipline.
A practical philosophy
It is not the “ I “Philosophical who governs his pages, but a” I Testimony, a real intellectual challenge: one could accuse the philosopher of substituting the subjective feeling for analysis. The testimony is part of a singular space-time: a “ here and now Who does not correspond to what is usually expected by the philosopher, according to the image of a lucretia entrenched from the world, observing from his shore the turpitude of men.
Where would she find the necessary hindsight to think what takes place before our eyes ? Is it reasonable to want to analyze the mechanisms of such violence through a writing that sticks to the temporality of the trial, while many gray areas remain unlocked ? I am thinking in particular of incest which Caroline Darian accuses her father, while this assault does not appear in the counts retained by the justice. One could fear that the philosopher plays her concepts or that she is planning fully made reasoning on an external reality.
It is not. Precisely because Manon Garcia is not just any philosopher: she invites philosophy to our kitchen table, as much as in our sheets and in our collective spaces. In other words, she makes philosophy a pragmatic to think life and provide tools to analyze Our most daily human experiences. The Pelicot trial then presents itself as the practical case par excellence of the concepts on which Manon Garcia has been working for fifteen years, namely the notions of submission, sexual consent and even of sex conversation.
Note in passing that these rapes on a sedated victim illustrate how much the violent sex is speaking. Far from being prophetic, the philosophy that Manon Garcia has been declining since We are not born submissive, we become proves its analytical force and its relevance to think of our society. The trial illustrates the relationships of domination, but what about the “ voluntary submission »Inducted by patriarchy ? To what extent marriage and conjugality have made Gisèle Pelicot a woman under control ? The philosopher does not dig this aspect, but shows how much this prism is operating among the attackers who see in Gisèle Pelicot that the property of her husband, which prevents them from recognizing their own fault. Of reluctance to think The rape, Manon Garcia invites us to listen to the reluctance to say rape. And despite the horror of the trial, it is a thin progress.
Love, make love or violate ?
After the publication of King Kong Theory In 2006, Virginie Despentes explained that many men confided in her to tell her that her book had opened their eyes, because they had not realized that their acts could be like sexual assault. The idea that women must “ educate Men to make them understand what is unacceptable in terms of gender -based and sexual violence is one of the leitmotive of feminist speeches, which get tired. This is what illustrious Dear ass (2022), which can be read as a learning novel for men.
Twenty years later, Mazan’s rapists deploy the same rhetoric: “ I didn’t know it was rape »» ; “” Her husband agreed “, etc. Manon Garcia shows that this pseudo-ignorance masks a defense strategy or, quite simply, an inability to differentiate strength reports and granted reports. Railing and making love cannot be confused, even if some have the impression that any act where the bodies assemble obeyed the same grammar. The philosopher insists (and that is perhaps what struck the understanding): love does not prevent horror and he can never serve as a moral guarantee.
Dominique Pelicot continues to proclaim that Gisèle is “ his love “And his” queen »» ; The accused are presented as “ good family fathers »Magnets. Girls and wives are there at the trial of their loved ones: their tears forcefully manifest their ransacked love on the altar of the court. Gisèle Pelicot in person had not entrusted to the police that Dominique was “ Best of husbands When he was arrested ? The juxtaposition of these testimonies brings together a question to which the book only answers only: what does it mean to love ? And what becomes of love in conjugality ?
Change disc
In reality, Manon Garcia confronts this enigma without completely resolving it, not by failure but by clairvoyance. The author admits – and this gesture is quite rare in philosophy to be praised – that this trial makes her experience the limits of what can be thought. If the proposed remedy is that men “ love women a bit ” For “ that we can continue to love them The problem is not as long as love is lacking, but rather that it does not find here any other expression than that of domination and violence.
Precisely, Manon Garcia summons to the bench of the accused what some call the “ rape “And what we simply see as our popular culture, that in which we all have grown, loved, danced: Alain Souchon and the flowery universe that gushes under the” Girls skirts »» ; Or “ Don’t you want me baby “By Human League (we can savor in passing the irony of a so-called” Human League Who sings on a disco rhythm that a woman who dares to leave a boy will end badly). According to what cultural models have we learned to love ? Can we be surprised that men think they love when they threaten, dominate and violent ? As Jeanne Moreau sang: “ Hurt me, Johnny ! I like love that makes boom ! »Isn’t it time to change discs ?
Examining our legal system as well as our institutions and even our culture, Manon Garcia’s testimony simply invites us to question the mechanism of our empathy and the way in which it is built through long time (let’s look, as a comparison, the feelings of pity for the aggressor that Bertrand Cantat had awake). In addition to the sympathy aroused by Gisèle Pelicot, an empathy is born for the women, girls and sisters of the aggressors, who become by ricochet those whose life is broken by their sexual abuse. Their children will be deprived of fathers and they will have to assume all functions alone, including providing for the needs of their imprisoned loved ones, they who have not thought of them before acting.
How to explain that shame first falls on them all, when the real attackers always benefit from extenuating circumstances ? The concept oflazy Forged by Kate Manne explains that sexual misery, abuse suffered, precariousness, in short everything related to history can so effectively invoke so effectively. emotional attackers when we are interested, on the victims side, rather in their manners than their feelings.
For shame to really change camp and our emotional models evolve, should we not investigate the manufacture of these representations, in particular thanks to literary history ? It seems to me that Manon Garcia’s book allows, by inviting all disciplines – both history and law, linguistics and human sciences in general – to walk with it to unfold what it means, on the long time, to live in company men.