How male 'rape culture' has become a serious threat to democracy
One of the most harrowing news stories of 2024 was of Gisèle Pelicot, the survivor of repeated rapes orchestrated by her husband. Her phenomenal courage was displayed across our screens and newspapers in the latter months of the year as the details of her ordeal were shared with the world when she took on her husband and 50 other men in court.
Her husband had drugged her and invited men on the internet to rape her. It is understood that there were at least 83 men involved across a nine-year period.
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Hide AdThe media often incorrectly labels the perpetrators of such crimes as “monsters” or anomalies in society, but what Gisèle Pelicot’s case yet again made clear was that the perpetrators are ordinary men. Among the 50 men on trial was a nurse, a councillor, a soldier, a lorry driver, a supermarket worker, and a farmer. Whilst her husband accepted guilt, referring to himself as a rapist, some of the others claimed naivety or blamed their upbringing, and one stated he “did not know what consent was”.


Low rape conviction rates
The court case has concluded with her ex-husband being sentenced to 20 years, the maximum sentence for these crimes in France, and others were sentenced to between three and 15 years in prison.
Women lined the streets to admire Gisèle Pelicot’s courage and to call for justice. These calls are needed as, globally, conviction rates for rape and sexual assault are astonishingly low. In Scotland, in 2022 the overall conviction rate for rape and attempted rape was 48 per cent, compared to 84 per cent across all crimes.
The Victims and Witnesses Bill currently being proposed by the Scottish Government is an attempt create a more trusted and effective justice system, particularly for survivors of rape, but beyond process and legislation, there is a culture and accountability problem that must be addressed with more urgency.
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Hide AdTurning points that lead nowhere
When Gisèle Pelicot said “shame must swap sides”, she was talking about the culture in which men feel entitled to harm women without shame, yet women feel ashamed to come forward for support or to seek justice when they experience violence as a consequence of this entitlement. She was talking about the conditions in society that give ‘permission’ for the harming of women and girls, referred to as “rape culture”.
What will it take for this to be responded to as the emergency that it is? Gisèle Pelicot, Sarah Everard, Fawziyah Javed, when these women were named in high-profile cases we were promised that this will be a turning point, that this will be a moment of change. But this change never seems to arrive.
Instead, we have a society that is increasingly hostile towards women, where reproductive rights are under threat and attempts are being made to roll back hard-won progress. In amongst all of this, indeed enabled by all of this, is the increasing threat of the ‘manosphere’ and conspiracy culture which specifically targets young men.
Women treated like objects
Mainstream online spaces like X and YouTube have become epicentres of hate towards women. Young men may, at first, innocently search for tips on getting fit, advice on relationships and gaming, but in just a few clicks this becomes videos by influencers telling men that they are “beta males” for pursing women, that society and women are against them, that they need to take control, and encouraging them to hate women, hate society and hate themselves.
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Hide AdVery quickly, videos and messages become darker and more extreme, leading to people like Andrew Tate and even worse influencers who condone violence against women and see women as objects to own.
In Scotland, projects like Many Good Men, by the theatre company Civic Digits is working within football stadiums to take interactive workshops to young men and women, having difficult conversations about this growing and dangerous problem. In particular, the theatre production asks the audience who has responsibility and at which point would you intervene? This is crucial. We all need to play a role and we need more interventions like this.
White supremacist views
But this online space of hate and self-loathing does not stop at hating women and nor does it remain online. It has become a gateway to hating all minoritised communities and a breeding ground for anti-democratic and far-right indoctrination. The algorithms push more hostile content on white supremacy, xenophobia and ‘alt-right’ movements, in which the hatred of women is entangled into an ideology that promotes the harmful view that only in a society where women are controlled by men, where migrants are deported and people’s civic rights are suppressed will young, predominantly white, men finally be able to prosper.
It targets young men’s feelings of isolation or confusion and, rather than creating supportive places to work through legitimate and common feelings, it encourages them to place blame on society. They are urged to cultishly believe that their feelings are a consequence of a society working to harm them and that any efforts to create a fairer one for women, for migrants, and for those clearly shown to be marginalised will mean fewer rights for them. Perhaps most worryingly, we are seeing all of this be manipulated for self-promotion within mainstream politics.
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Hide AdThis is a threat to women’s and girls’ safety, to minority communities, and to the safety and well-being of men and boys. Increasingly, this is being demonstrated to be a threat to democracy. Rather than waiting for the next harrowing news story of violence against women or against migrants, we must act now. We ignore it at our peril.
Talat Yaqoob is an equalities consultant and campaigner