What is now known as the “Damien Abad affair” is like another nail in the coffin of women’s autonomy. On the airwaves and television sets, surprising, not to say shocking, phrases collide to the point of nausea: “it is not a question of guilty or innocent but of doubt” (which justifies Damien’s resignation Abad in the meantime – what? who? when?); “we made the choice to believe women” (which sanctifies women’s voices whatever happens, whatever the context); “the presumption of innocence should be replaced by the precautionary principle” (because an accused man is naturally guilty) ; “it is not a question of justice but of politics” (ah good? But then what good is justice, the law?). Worse: what remains of women’s free will? Have they become second-class citizens while neo-feminists demand a “presumption of sincerity” for women? Are women incapable of lying? Have we returned to the past where women were nothing but innocence and purity?
The chronology is important in the Abad case. Mediapart, which now spends its time in the beds of citizens and politicians (doesn’t Sandrine Rousseau explain learnedly that the State must intervene in the privacy of citizens?) has posted its “investigation” online barely a week after the Taha Bouhafs affair. The latter has, moreover, received a slap on the wrist (or not) in the form of a withdrawal of investiture, without anything – and I write well: nothing – does not filter from what is exactly reproached to him, without the testimonies, which according to the prosecutor Clémentine Autain were of an unbearable violence, not being transmitted to justice, the dirty linen washing henceforth in Mélenchonist seigneury as in the Middle Ages.
That the radical priestesses of the fight against sexual violence, Mesdames Autain, De Haas and Rousseau, are content with such a feeble “punishment”; that Taha Bouhafs continues his life and that – I bet you my hats – he reappears on the public scene without it shocking anyone “left”, leaves me doubtful (this is an understatement).
The fear of justice
Repeating all the time that justice is patriarchal, that justice is against women, that justice never condemns rapists and aggressors, will have only one consequence: to divert women victims of violence from justice. Worse: make them fear justice. Because how is it possible that the two women who accuse Damien Abad are able to tell the facts in detail to journalists, including an interview on public radio, but are paralyzed by the idea of appearing before a prosecutor?
How could the prosecution open an investigation when one of the women wishes to remain anonymous, while the complaint of the other complainant has already been dismissed? Are women half-citizens when it comes to justice? How to explain then that a black actress could easily file a complaint against a white producer for attempted rape and that the latter was summoned, placed in police custody, and awaiting trial on September 14, even though the case seems as unreal as the existence of unicorns? Does justice only work half the time for women?
Systematically presenting men as predators and women as victims, making women’s voices sacred and denying the defense of men, describing the public space, the political, media and artistic world as a vast jungle where women are systematically hunted as a frightened animal, is not only insulting to women and men, but what will be the consequences? Should we separate men and women in public transport, in restaurants, in businesses? Is violence non-existent in female couples? Should we close the courts, the accusation henceforth worth condemnation? Should we return to the time of lynching and individual revenge? Should we prohibit relations between men and women before preliminary investigation to test the degree of violence of men? Do we have to live apart to live protected?