It is enormous. The balance of power has changed. People can no longer minimize these issues. During the Baupin trial, the effect was evident. There are words that can’t be used anymore. His defense said that he was an obnoxious seducer but that he wasn’t violent. But the media have covered the trial in ways that I didn’t expect. For instance, text messages by the women who accused him were presented in court. The women answer his texts, or they don’t rebuff him, or even sometimes go along, and they explain that they didn’t know how to get out of a bad situation—the media believed them. [...]
We must discuss what qualifies as consent and place that at the heart of the conversation. How do we manage to have relationships free from male domination? It’s not simple. We must discuss how women internalize this domination. We can discuss if legal action is the solution or if we need to find measures to prevent these things from happening in the first place. [...]
French law has a pretty narrow definition of what sexual harassment is. It is very hard to prove. That seems easier in the United States. I do think it protects many women. In companies in the United States, factory workers have denounced sexual harassment. I am not exactly sure what tools they can use here to do the same thing.
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