Victoria Richards: Gisele Pelicot’s ‘descent into hell’ shows once again why women are so furious

The phrase “angry woman” is bandied around as some kind of insult; spat out in the same breath as “angry feminist” or “bra burner” or “calm down, dear”. We’re meant to feel ashamed by the accusation, timid, cowed. We’re meant to retreat into ourselves and shut up. Well, not anymore.

Gisele Pelicot arrives at the Avignon court house, southern France Photo: AP Photo/Lewis Joly The phrase “angry woman” is bandied around as some kind of insult; spat out in the same breath as “angry feminist” or “bra burner” or “calm down, dear”. We’re meant to feel ashamed by the accusation, timid, cowed. We’re meant to retreat into ourselves and shut up.

Well, not anymore. Angry woman? You bet. We are livid.

I, personally, am baseball-bat-to-a-glass-window furious that in the past week alone, we’ve seen headlines describing an incredibly courageous woman – Gisele Pelicot – whose life as she knew it disintegrated in 2020 when she discovered her husband had been drugging her and inviting strangers to rape her for years in her own home, while filming it – as “taking public revenge on men”. It’s not revenge to tell the truth. It is bravery.

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