Why women are paying attention:

As France digests the implications of its largest rape trial, which is due to end this week, it’s clear that many French women – and not just those at the courthouse in Avignon – are pondering two fundamental questions.

The first question is visceral. What might it say about French men – some would say all men – that 50 of them, in one small, rural neighbourhood, were apparently willing to accept a casual invitation to have sex with an unknown woman as she lay, unconscious, in a stranger’s bedroom?

The second question emerges from the first: how far will this trial go in helping to tackle an epidemic of sexual violence and of drug-facilitated rape, and in challenging deeply held prejudices and ignorance about shame and consent?

How far will anything go in helping to tackle the ancient, obstinate, immovable hatred of women that seems to be baked into human nature?

I’ve been wondering that my whole adult life. I’ve never really gotten over the shock of learning how obstinate and immovable it is.