Bacholle's new book explores violence against women in France

A professor in Eastern’s Department of World Languages and Cultures recently authored a book exposing sordid accounts of violence against French women in society. Published this February by Bloomsbury Publishing, French Professor Michèle Bacholle’s “Violence and Rebellion in French Women’s Autofiction” is a breakdown of the various facets of gender-based violence, drawing on accounts from well-established female voices in French literature.

Bacholle argues that violence against women takes its forms physically, emotionally, societally, and culturally. The autofiction she cites explores the dynamics of French women navigating oppression in public, at home, and in the workplace. 

“There are some very obvious (forms), like real physical violence … and some more emotional,” said Bacholle. “Violence in the workplace isn’t always sexual — sometimes it’s being expected to clean up after everyone or get the coffee because you’re a woman.” 

According to Bacholle, the latter type, referred to as micro-violence, also comes in the skewing of the perception of motherhood. Rather than treating motherhood as a personal choice, society puts pressure on women to reproduce children like assets. 

“Not all women want to be mothers, but society expects them to be,” said Bacholle. “People often interrogate or criticize women who don’t have the desire to be a parent, as if it’s abnormal to have a say in whether you reproduce.” 

Bacholle emphasized that rape culture, including insufficient legal punishment for marital rape, has a long and sordid history in France and remains especially pervasive across industries and institutions. 

“Rape culture is a pernicious and insidious thing that has existed for a long time,” said Bacholle. “Marital rape has only been considered a crime since the 1990s, and the ‘#MeToo’ movement has not come close to being finished in France.” 

In her book, Bacholle cited the recent case of a French woman named Gisèle Pelicot to illustrate how normalized and legally ambiguous sexual violence still is in France. “In her book “A Hymn to Life,” she describes how her husband got arrested because he had pimped her to 50 men,” she said. “Some men came to the trial saying, ‘I didn’t rape her because her husband consented.’” 

According to Bacholle, the institutions in France that bear the most responsibility to its people are often failing to protect women the most. 

“Rape and abuse happen in the Catholic Church and at the hands of government officials all the time, and it just gets covered up,” she said. “The men who are meant to take action just don’t say anything — they cover it by keeping silence.” 

Bacholle’s proposed solution to the systemic problem stems from the book’s subtitle: “Stand Up and Split,” and calls on her readers to refuse silence, intervene when they witness harm, and encourage women to support one another. 

“The more we talk about any kind of violence against women, the more we fight it,” said Bacholle. “We assess the given situations, and when we are mistreated, we rebel.” 

She continued: “Older women especially have a moral duty to help younger women stand up for themselves in a way that they couldn’t when they were younger. Not turning a blind eye is a form of activism.”