Just came across this: Strauss-Kahn Case Inspires French Woman to Charge Minister with Rape
In the United States, the allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn seemed to herald a series of sex scandals in the news. Now in France, the controversy has inspired a women to speak out against another government official. Junior civil service minister George Tron resigned on Sunday after he became the subject of a preliminary investigation into charges of rape and sexual assault, the Associated Press reports. Two women alleged that he had attacked them between 2007 and 2010.
Tron, 53, is a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party. The two women, aged 34 and 36, once worked at the town hall of Draveil, south of Paris, where Tron has long been mayor. One said she was too ashamed to tell anyone at first, but that she spoke out after the charges were brought in New York against Strauss-Kahn.
“When I saw that a chambermaid was capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I told myself I didn’t have the right to keep quiet,” said the woman, who was not identified by name.
I wrote about my issues with the ethics of feminist solidarity (more specifically, with the inane “We are all chambermaids”, as a misguided slogan that ignores the many vectors of colonial violence in the DSK case).
And now I come across this, which makes me even stronger in my conviction that French feminists are really out of line with this so called “solidarity”. If even a chambermaid speaks about injustices how could I, a middle class civil servant not speak up?! The classist assumption that a chambermaid would a) not have a voice to speak (you know, just because you haven’t been listening, it doesn’t mean women like this chambermaid in question haven’t been speaking) and b) that of course, how can a woman of a certain class deny herself justice when even a chambermaid reclaims her right?!
For the past decade and a half I have been making all my content available for free (and never behind a paywall) as an ongoing practice of ephemeral publishing. This site is no exception. If you wish to help offset my labor costs, you can donate on Paypal or you can subscribe to Patreon where I will not be putting my posts behind a lock but you'd be helping me continue making this work available for everyone. Thank you. Follow me on Twitter for new post updates.