The New European [unpaywalled] – Our 2024 Person of the Year has changed the rules, reversed the language and given women permission to reject shame …But then Gisèle Pelicot did the unthinkable. She demanded that the court show the tapes to her rapists and journalists while she faced her attackers. She stared the rules in the face and challenged the decision and sat in the courtroom facing her rapists. And she has won. She changed the rules. She held her head high and gave us permission to reject shame…Gisèle Pelicot did not let her rapists look away. She did not let the court look away. She did not let the world look away and in doing so has radically altered the conversation. She told the court in Avignon she wants women who have been raped to know that “it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them”. It is like the world I operate in shifted on its axis. Gisèle Pelicot’s radical act of rebellion hasn’t just impacted her trial. It has shone a flashlight in the dark corners of my mind where I still blamed myself for violations.   It has done what years of therapy and working in violence against women was not able to do. It has altered how I view my own experiences and how I treat the woman in the mirror. And in doing so, also erased the hypocrisy I have felt in being able to recognise other women were not at fault, but not giving myself that same respect and grace. I am done being ashamed or making excuses for the men that violated my boundaries…”