Gisele Pelicot Testifies: 'This Isn't Being Brave'

After what the New York Times describes as weeks of having "remained silent as one defendant after another spoke before the judges," Gisele Pelicot took the stand once more on Wednesday. The French woman—who has been upheld as a feminist icon for insisting on a public trial for her former husband and 50 men he allegedly invited to rape her while unconscious—had taken the stand once before, on Sept. 18. The BBC explains she took the stand in Avignon for a second time after her lawyers asked that she have the opportunity to respond to what has been shared thus far at the trial, which began Sept. 2 and isn't expected to finish until December. Standout lines:

• "I want all women who have been raped to say: Madame Pelicot did it, I can too. I don't want them to be ashamed any longer," she said of her request for an open trial and for video evidence to be shown.
• As for the public trial, "I did it because what happened to me can never happen again."
• "I've been told I'm brave. This isn't being brave, it's having the will and determination to change society. Bravery means jumping into the sea to rescue someone. I just have will and determination."
• Pelicot said she is "completely destroyed ... I don't know if my whole life will be enough to understand."
• Of her husband, she said, "I want to say to him: I've always tried to lift you higher, towards the light. You chose the darkest depths of human nature. You're the one who made this choice."
• She said he would often make her dinner, then serve her ice cream, which he later admitted was how he drugged her. "I used to say to him: How lucky am I, you're a darling, you really look after me."
• She said she must have passed out quickly and would feel tired when she awoke the next day in her bed—with her pajamas on, per the Guardian—which she attributed to the long walks she took. "I had gynecological issues, and some mornings I woke up with the same feeling as if my waters had broken. The signs were there, but I never knew how to decode them."

(More Gisele Pelicot stories.)