[Image credit: https://existentialcafe.blog/2020/06/23/am-i-a-bad-person-examining-the-importance-of-knowing-the-difference-between-guilt-and-shame/]
Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman, was drugged and raped by her husband, Dominique Pelicot and numerous other men recruited by him for over a decade. The trial took place in Avignon from September 2 to December 16, 2024, and ended with 51 verdicts, including a maximum sentence of 20 years for Dominique Pelicot.
This is the kind of event that forces cultural and societal self-examination, so there is no surprise the trial received massive coverage in France and in the foreign press. It resonates for the French because they are good at this kind of stuff, and it cuts to the heart of what it means to be a male in French society, a popular topic for centuries. The perception is they have a “shut-up-and-be-pretty” attitude towards women, and the evidence seems to be supportive. A 2023 report by the High Authority on Equality (HCE), a consultative body, found sexism at alarming levels in France, with women “being targeted by new forms of harassment including online violence, verbal abuse on social media and pornography with “barbaric” content.” The report found “sexist behaviour increasing in ‘all spheres’, with many men believing violent and discriminatory behaviour to be acceptable.”
During the trial, Gisele Pelicot offered a comment that resonated with women and feminist groups in France.
“Quand on est violée, il y a de la honte, et ce n’est pas à nous d’avoir honte, c’est à eux.”
“When you’re raped, there’s shame, and it’s not up to us to be ashamed, it’s up to them.”
This idea of shifting shame from women to men caught on in the public sphere, with women’s groups seeing this as a way to change the narrative.
The old one? “Oh, this is terrible, but not all men are like this.” However, as Women for Women France points out that “it’s equally true that every man who remains passive in the face of gender-based violence contributes to the maintenance of a system in which women and girls live in constant fear for their safety simply because of their gender.”
The Problem with Shame
Shame is a self-conscious emotion that gets a lot of play in modern psychology. Part of its infamy comes in the fact it is often confused with its fellow emotion, guilt. This is not a big deal; but if you correct somebody in a casual conversation about the difference, expect a large sigh.
Brene Brown defines shame “as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.” Guilt on the other hand is “cognitive dissonance. Guilt says, I’ve done something or failed to do something that is aligned with my values. And it feels awful. I need to make amends, make a change and hold myself accountable. I need to fix it.”
Both are self-evaluative and introspective. The difference, for Brown, is that with guilt, you sense you did something bad; with shame, you sense you are bad.
In the world of moral-psychology, guilt has a lousy reputation. People think of it as unhealthy, distractive, and constraining; self-consciousness at its worst. But not everybody agrees. According to Brown: “I’m just going to say it: I’m pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it’s about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we’ve done – or failed to do – with our personal values.” True guilt, the psychological discomfort, does something incredibly important, it motivates meaningful change. It can be adaptive and helpful.
Shame carries none of these qualities. All shame does is pretty much damage your sense of self. Brown goes so far as to say she thinks of it as “inherently dehumanizing.”: It “corrodes the belief that we can be better and do better.” If Brown is correct, do we really want to shift shame to men?
Back to France
The men in France have a reputation, it’s not good, and incidents like the Pelicot trial just work to confirm this.
This is how the perpetrators are described in the Guardian article.
“Most of the men denied the allegations against them. Some argued that it could not be rape because the husband consented, others said it had not occurred to them to ask for Gisèle’s consent, or argued that they did not really know what consent was, or that they had not intended to rape her, and therefore are not rapists. Some went further and said that they too were victims of Dominique.”
They have no sense of guilt. There is no feeling of pain or discomfort; and they are oblivious to the fact they have done something wrong or immoral. Trying to get these guys to feel guilty is a waste of time; and besides, the goal is to move France as a country forward on the issue of violence toward women.
What happens if we follow Brene Brown’s directive, socialize guilt to all men, make them all self-conscious; make them all question their values; and make them all feel uncomfortable.
Two things can happen. The first is obvious, fits wonderfully with the old narrative, and reflects the universal problem with all collective action. “I didn’t do anything, why are you blaming me?” The second offers more hope. It’s possible the imposition of guilt to men as a group leads to self-examination of the actions and values of the collective whole. If a man feels gender violence is a “man-created” problem, and that men bear collective responsibility for this in France, they may feel that remediation requires collective action on “their” part.
We see some evidence of this happening. Rokhaya Diallo in a Guardian article offers an example of how collective guilt can activate and lead to change.
“Several male public figures have spoken out, suggesting that the trial has been an ‘awakening’ for them. The TV presenter Karim Rissouli asked other men to collectively question ‘their way of being men’, saying that the alleged rapists are ‘men like you and me’. More than two hundred men in public life co-authored an opinion piece in Libération saying that male violence is ‘not about monsters’ but about ‘ordinary, everyday men’.”
This is guilt at work, not shame.
