Essay: Fuck Le Patriarcat!

aka What the Fuck, France?

What the actual fuck is happening in France?

Specifically to wives.

One of the worst horrors to erupt at the Pelicot trial was the “Her husband said it was ok,” defense offered by men who had raped a woman whose husband had drugged her to a state of unconsciousness.

As if the husband owns the wife's body, to fuck when he wants and to offer up for fucking when he wants. Which is exactly what Dominique Pelicot did to Gisele.

And that message–that a husband owns his wife’s body to fuck when he wants as he wants–was exactly the one issued for over a decade by court after court in France that blamed a woman identified as H.W. for the end of her marriage because she stopped having sex with her husband.

Not too long before I heard about H.W.’s case, a Muslim woman I know who was born and raised in France was asked, as she and her foreign-born husband were being interviewed for his citizenship application, “Will he let you leave the house?”

In a country that is obsessed with what Muslim women can and can’t do with their bodies, what Muslim men can or can’t do to their wives, H.W. was told it was her duty to offer her body up for her abusive husband’s pleasure, on his whim.