“All Men Are Rapists and That’s All They Are”

By: (view are author’s own)

By: (view are author’s own)

I am loath to accept Marilyn French, the late American radical feminist author’s notion that “all men are rapists”, not least because that must include me and my three adult sons plus all my male friends. But if you rephrase it to read “all men are POTENTIAL rapists” then I cannot disagree.

The older I get and the more I study men and masculinities, the more I am attracted to radical feminism; which basically comes down to the realisation that all men are potentially dangerous not only to each other, but especially to women.

You don’t need me to provide masses of empirical evidence to back up that realisation; just read the news, and the history books.

France is currently coming to terms with its own evidence that all men are potential rapists, with the trial of 51 of them accused of the raping or sexually assaulting 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot, aided and abetted by her husband; Dominique aged 72. Apparently, her husband liked to give guys (over 80 of them) a “good time with his wife” first ensuring she was knocked out through a cocktail of drugs. He even filmed the proceedings. This was not a one-off event, it happened regularly over a nine-year period, only ending in…