This text is a presentation given by Dr. Francine Sporenda for Women’s Declaration International’s weekly webinair « Feminist Question Time ».

One thing of special interest in the field of feminist studies are the forms of male abuse and exploitation which have not been identified and analysed by feminists yet (or not much). The new forms of victimization of women I am going to talk about today have not been identified clearly by most feminists, because they are recent and because these new forms of abuse are paradoxically the consequence of recent laws or reforms which have been heralded by the medias (and even by some feminists) as major advances in the protection of women. These so-called pro-feminist laws are the perfect illustration of the recuperation of feminism by patriarchy, more precisely of a new patriarchal strategy against women : its purely discursive recognition of some forms of women’s abuses by males and the passing of laws supposedly punishing these abuses—a political form of feminism washing.

Quite a few « pro-feminist » laws have been passed in France as well as in the US and the UK but there several problems with these laws :

– the legal principles on which these laws are based are often clearly sexist : for instance, the law about rape is formulated in such a way that the burden of proof rests on the victim: it’s the victim who has to prove she has not consented to sex with the rapist, it’s her lawyer who has to make the case that she is innocent, whereas in other types of crimes, it’s the accused who has to prove he is innocent. 

-these laws are not really enforced—it’s most obvious in the case of the law criminalizing the purchase of sex in France : the level of enforcement of this law is low and varies considerably from place to place. It’s also the case for the law punishing rape : while the level of proof demanded by the judiciary system to establish the occurrence of rape is high, higher than for any other crime, the investigations conducted by the police to find evidence are usually minimal, or downright inexistent. The case is then dismissed for lack of evidence before reaching court.

 -the judiciary process re-victimize the victims of male violence—a phenomenon called secondary victimization. That’s again the case of the laws on rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment :  these laws are interpreted and enforced by personnel—police, judges, district attorneys etc.—who are impregnated with sexist stereotypes and rape culture. As a result, the institutional interactions with the victims—police interrogations, cross-examinations, confrontations with the agressor, etc. —are traumatizing for them. Also, due to inadequate funding, there are too few of these personnel so they don’t have the means to deal efficiently with these violences even if they wanted to.

THE LAW ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT

 The French law on sexual harassment is a case in point : the first of these laws was passed in 1992 (article 222-33 of the Penal code) ; of course, like all the laws concerning domestic violence or sexual violence, this law was written in gender neutral terms, disregarding the fact that most victims of these violences are women and the perpetrators are men. 

It stipulates that women who are harassed in the context of work can lodge a complaint with the police. According to the law, a police officer cannot refuse a complaint, it’s a basic legal right. But in fact, when it comes to victims of sexual harassment, it’s not rare that the police dismiss their claim as futile, and considers the offense not serious enough to justify the filing of a complaint.

This law was modified in 2002 and 2012, and the last version stipulates that the maximum penalty incured for sexual harassment is 2 years of emprisonment and a 30 000 Euros fine. Some time afterward (in 2014), the Senate produced a report on the results of the law (1) : on the average, for roughly 70% of the complaints filed for sexual harassment, no further action was taken. Of the ones which were investigated, from 18 to 34% were dismissed by the investigating magistrates, while 25 to 35% of the rest led to a simple reminder of the law.

The official estimate for the complaints filed for sexual harassment has been evaluated at about 1 000 cases yearly, a figure which is quite low compared to the number of situations of sexual harassment really occuring : knowing full well that they could lose their job if they do, very few victims file a complaint while a poll revealed that 20% of working women have been victims of such behaviors at work (2). Out of these roughly 1 000 cases of filed complaints, only 70 to 85 have resulted in a sentence, ¾ of these sentences being defered imprisonment of at most 2 years and 17% incured a 1 000 to 2 000 Euros fine. According to an article published in 2017 in the daily Libération, out of these 1 000 cases, only 6,2% ended up in a firm sentence (3).

When I started to get interested in how the law punishing sexual harassment was working for women, I did not know these figures but I was aware of the small number of these cases going to court and of the even smaller number of them ending up in a sentence. One reason why not many of these cases go to court is that the patriarchal judiciary system is well organized, it works this way :

-step one, a woman who has been harassed (and it’s valid for rape as well) files a complaint.

-step two : under the control of the district attorney, the police investigates to verify the existence of the offense, to collect evidence and to identify/locate the suspect. But often, the police investigation is shoddy, the police doesn’t spend enough time and energy to gather evidence, so the case is dismissed as « sans suite » by the district attorney–it doesn’t go to court.

-step 3 : the agressor is now off the hook, the fact that the case did not go to court is wrongly seen as proof of his innocence by the media and public opinion. He can now launch a countersuit against his victim.

Another phenomenon attracted my attention : if the proportion of women winning in court after filing a complaint for sexual harassment was very low, the proportion of men suing their accusers in return for defamation or slanderous denunciation appeared comparatively quite high : not only these men countersued their accusers but they often won their suit—and I was wondering why.

I found the answer when I read the text of the law : the terms on which the denunciation of a harasser can be made are defined very strictly : it should be done « in good faith » (the victim should not lie)–and of course there is no problem with that. But it specifies also that the only people that the victim can inform of her harassment are her employer, the Human Ressources manager, the personnel representative and the Inspection of Labor Practices (4). If the woman has lost her case in court and has spoken or written about the harasser to other people, she can be taken to court and sentenced to a heavy fine for slanderous denunciation or defamation.

As most of the time the accused men are more powerful in the structure and wealthier than their victims, and as these women are ignorant of these legal restrictions and talk about their situation to their colleagues (to find out if they have been harassed too), to friends, family (for advice and emotional support) and on social networks, it’s quite frequent that the women who dare to talk end up being convicted of libel.

Clearly here, like in the case of the laws about rape, the law supposedly protecting women against sexual harassment is drafted so as to prioritize the protection of the harassers’ reputation. Not just against false accusations (several studies have established that these false accusations are rare : for sexual harassment as for rape and sexual assault, the percentage of false accusations is on average 2/3% and no higher than in other forms of crime) but against any accusation not disclosed to the proper persons as specified by the law, as long as he has not been found guilty by a court. If you are not aware of the tricky specifics of this law, not only it’s likely that you will lose your case but you are also going to be sued by our agressor–and you will lose.

If one observes the consequences of this law for victims of sexual harassment, it appears doubtful that it has been drafted to protect them. Concretely, it’s outcome is that, most of the time, the women who refuse to stay silent about sexual harassment are at best dismissed, often after a long, costly and traumatizing process–or are the target of a countersuit. So when other victims who would be tempted to speak out see what happens to women who do, they are dissuaded to file a complaint, as it makes them fearful of being coutersued on top of losing their jobs. In fact, this law is worded in  such way that it’s a booby trap for female plaintiffs. It’s a perfect example of how laws supposedly protecting women  revictimize them when they seek legal protection against their abusers.  

DIVORCE AND FLIGHT FROM FATHERHOOD

Regarding the second example of antifeminist laws presented as pro-feminist covered by this presentation, it’s important to remember that, in most traditional patriarchal societies, males want to keep their children after a divorce, in particular male children, and the existing laws protect their paternal rights —it was the case in most western European countries during the 19th century (5). Now, in western countries, children can no longer work, it’s prohibited by law, therefore they cannot provide an income to the family and they won’t support their parents when they grow old. They are no longer a source of income for fathers, quite the opposite, since they cost lots of money to raise.

So western men are not so eager anymore to get full custody of their children after a divorce, and in many cases are quite happy to let the mother assume total responsability for them—care and financial upkeep. I observed also an interesting trend : when a woman and a man get married or decide to live together, it’s often the man who puts pressure on the woman to have a child, whereas the woman usually is not so enthusiastic. But often the man wins, because he promises he will share the parental work, and the woman thinks their relationship will crumble if they refuse. When the baby is born and the going gets rough, when men realize the amount of work involved in parental care, they renege on their promise to help the mother, tend to disengage from parenting, and some of them leave. And men retreat or leave even more often when the child is autistic or has some other health problem.

 One of the typical aspects of neo-patriarchy is how a new trend or reform which appears to be an improvement of the legal rights or options open to women turns out to induce major material gains for men. One typical exemple of this side effect (which has been identified by feminists for quite a while) is the case of the divorce laws passed from the 19th century on in most western European countries.

Having the legal possibility to escape a tyranical, abusive and violent husband was an essential step in protecting women against male sexual and physical abuse. But feminists know that divorce often results in a deteriorated financial situation for women, even in poverty. The figures for the UK and France are close : when they divorce, women on average lose 30% of their income in the UK and 35% in France, their economic situation deteriorating even more if they have children. According to the statistics I have, men don’t lose financially in a separation, in fact most of the time their income increases. So a legal option which was a lifesaver for women trapped in bad mariages has turned to the advantage of men financially due to the economic inequality existing between them.

UNILATERAL MARRIAGE CONTRACT

Another case of these feminist advances that turn eventually to the advantage of men is females’ recent access to waged employment : during the 20th century, women have entered the work force in droves. The figures about the presence of women in the work force are interesting : according to the sources I found, the UK is the country were the participation of women in the work force is the highest : in 2020, 72,3% women worked in waged employement–but half of these jobs were part time. The percentage is less in France—67,6%– but interestingly, only ¼ of these working women work part time. Very interesting also is the fact that the US has the lowest percentage of working women : only 56,8% in 2022.

Of course, women in the work force are still paid less than men, the figures is 25% less on average in the UK, roughly the same in France (24%). But most women earn a salary nowadays and when they marry or live with a man, this salary is used to pay the common expenses of the couple—rent, food, expenses for the children, etc. From what I heard from many women, when they enter heterosexual coupling, they are often required by their partner to share the common living expenses 50/50, despite the fact that their salary is significantly lower.

So lots of women accept to share the common expenses of the couple equally or almost equally despite the fact that their salaries are lower—and from what I have read, this gap is not really closing. But as they bring an equal or near equal financial contribution to the couple’s expenses, women continue nevertheless to shoulder roughly the same share of domestic work. This share has hardly diminished : it’s been stuck at about 70% of the chores relatively to men. Men do a bit more chores these days but the workload of women has increased slightly, so the relative percentage of these chores hasn’t changed.

When I was a kid, raised in a middle class family in provincial France in the 50s, in all the families that my parents were seing socially, none of the wives worked. The only working woman I knew was a young widow who had to work to raise her children. The normative marriage contract at the time was similar to the slave contract (feminist historians consider that the marriage contract was the model for the slave contract). The terms of the contract was unpaid work of the wife—domestic, sexual, reproductive, emotional—in exchange for her maintenance by her husband. Husbands paid for the upkeep of their children and wives. This form of exchange was grossly unfair, and the wife was was financially dependent on her husband, but it was still an exchange, there was a degree of reciprocity.

In the typical 21st century couple, the husband still benefits from the unpaid domestic work of his wife but he no longer has to pay for her maintenance in return.

That’s what I call the new unilateral marriage contract : the normative marriage contract still implies obligations for the woman but not for the man, or very few. When you think about it, it looks like the very advangeous situation of a slavemaster whose slaves would still be working for him but he would no longer have to feed and lodge them : again a net financial gain for men. It’s a pattern wich is typical of neo-patriarchy : men keep their rights and their control over women but they unload some of their traditional responsabilities on them.

This pattern is similar to a typical pattern of neo-liberal capitalism : modern capitalism is no longer paternalistic, 21st century capitalists no longer want to keep their employees for a lifetime, they are no longer willing to build them houses, schools, and offer them various advantages to retain their services on the long term. The relationship between employees and bosses has become non-commital—non commital on the side of the boss that is : companies offer few long term contracts, workers are supposed to be free auto-entrepreneurs, we are told that the commitment to the company is flexible and that they can leave whenever they want, which is a coded way to say that their boss can fire them and replace them anytime, and on top of that they have little social protection. The workers still have obligations towards their employer but the obligations of the employers towards them have been considerably reduced : this is called uberization, and it strangely parallels the one-sided « sharing » of rights and duties in the new marriage contract.

(To be continued)