Saying NO! to Rape: Narratives of Trauma, Healing and Resistance in 19th- and 21st-century France

Abstract

I am the first scholar to analyze a new corpus of 115 broad sheets and pamphlets on rape from the 19th c. Not well known, they were called canards sanglants, sensationalized news stories not published in any daily or weekly paper. Community trauma recurs as a theme because mostly girls in small towns were murdered and sexually violated. Two accounts will be analyzed. Following Judith Herman’s lead, I suggest a novel premise: Perhaps canards sanglants performed an important healing function by memorializing in print the shock and mourning of a community. The fact rapes were not silenced and justice was served, I contend, is how the news source said NO! to rape. In the 21st c., Gisèle Pélicot and Vanessa Springora shape their own traumatic narratives of rape and atteinte sexuelle sur mineur. Both cases involve consent. Can their activism and resistance to silence bring healing? Also discussed are France’s mixed reception to each case and the judicial and social ramifications of both.