After focusing on men accused of domestic violence in his book Nos Pères, Nos Frères, Nos Amis ("Our Fathers, Our Brothers, Our Friends," 2023), journalist and writer Mathieu Palain takes another look at male domination in his fictional work Les Hommes Manquent de Courage ("Men Lack Courage," l'Iconoclaste, 2024). In an interview with Le Monde, he looks back at male reactions to the trial of the men accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was drugged by her husband, and the tensions surrounding the hashtag #NotAllMen, which has taken center stage in public discourse.

For some men, the word "shame" about our gender may seem harsh. But feeling shame doesn't mean that all men could have been among the 50 accused in that bedroom in Mazan. This trial simply gives us the opportunity to understand that while not all men are rapists, the 50 defendants have in common that they are men, raised in the same environment since childhood, within the same patriarchal society that creates rapists and allows them to treat women's bodies as personal property. This reality forces us to question ourselves.

To say #NotAllMen is to feel threatened, even though we're being told that we're the ones who create the threat; it's a way of diverting attention. This reflex is nothing new: men dissociate themselves from the image of the monster. But in this trial, the defendants are integrated members of society, not brutal, drunken thugs. On the contrary, they look like us. But it's just hard to accept that we're part of the violent side. It means questioning a whole social and personal framework that you've relied on since childhood to move forward. I also think that some men are simply afraid of losing their privileges, both at home and at work. They realize how much better it was before, when women were silent, and when they didn't have to face up to their own behavior.

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