The Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot trial was unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
SlateSign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Slate caught up with McDougall to discuss the history behind the trial, what it might change in France, and how she’ll teach it to students in the future. There’s also an interesting historical aspect to Avignon being a place where people would come to seek justice during the time you study. I have a favorite case of a woman who went there after trying everything she could to get out of a marriage with a terrible husband, which women weren’t supposed to be able to do, but after she came to Avignon she did get justice, and ended up an abbess in a convent for repentant prostitutes … That was a happy ending? The law today doesn’t explicitly consider consent, but because of the Pelicot trial, there is a debate now in France over whether it should.