Ms. Pelicot’s story is one that I learned about in the news after the court hearing against her husband and other perpetrators began. She is from France. I was fascinated with the knowledge that she had requested the courtroom be opened to the public at the Palais de Justice. The title “Shame Has to Change Sides,” coincides with this. She had heard this term from a woman’s group, I believe she says in her book. It meant that instead of her facing the humiliation of being alone in the courtroom, with all of her perpetrators, instead, the room would be filled with journalists (from around the world) and women wanting to hear her story. These people, who flocked in daily once the word got out, were now facing the perpetrators, so they could not be anonymous. This was a very brave action on her part, especially as these people would also be witness to the humiliation and degradation that was done to her in more than a decade. The book she writes, “A Hymn to Life,” gives us the details of her fifty year marriage to the “monster.”
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Jeannine Vegh 