SUSAN SWARTZ

We don’t know how the sordid saga of the French mogul versus the
Guinean hotel maid will end. Hopefully two things revealed during
this increasingly messy case will remain unchallenged.
Women, in France and elsewhere, who felt empowered to finally
share their own experiences at the hands of powerful men, will not
slink back to the shadows. And employers, at hotels and elsewhere,
will continue to do the right thing by and for the least of their
employees.
It was impressive, surprising even, that a hotel maid felt safe
to tell her bosses she was attacked by a guest and trust the hotel
to alert the authorities. Another employer, another time, another
place, might have told her to wash up and get back to work. They
might have accused her of bringing it on herself and that
badmouthing guests was bad for business.
Then followed the dramatic response by French women apparently
just waiting for some over the top sexual assault case to get
together and finally speak out against their boys rule
tradition.
I took the side of the maid. Details of the alleged attack were
terrifying. The assumption that a maid’s body was as disposable as
used towels was enraging. And it all sounded perfectly believable,
like any movie or novel in which a rich white powerful man does
whatever he wants with a poor black powerless woman. As for the
notion that it was consensual? Hard to believe that a 32-year-old
woman exposed to a big bellied white haired naked guy twice her age
dripping wet from the shower would automatically think, “Take me
now, lover.”
If the incident was as frightening and humiliating as was
reported, I wanted justice. Especially if it was true that the guy
roughed her up, got his jollies and then tried to flee the
country.
I wanted him to pay. And then maybe men like him would stop
grabbing women and women like her would holler no and tell all. And
the world would be a better place.
That hasn’t quite happened. It’s complicated. She apparently
lied, not so much about what happened in the room – she had bruises
on her and his body fluids were spattered around the room. There
was enough, say prosecutors, to show evidence of a forced sexual
attack.
But on her immigration application she exaggerated the awfulness
of life in Africa. She also claimed she had an extra child to get
better housing.
While her earlier lies have nothing to do with her charge that
she was sexually assaulted it made her less the ideal victim. And
he, less the ideal perpetrator. But what of his past lies?
Considering his political and financial status, it’s possible he’s
stretched the truth once or twice to get where he is today. Maybe
he lied to get ahead just as she did to escape oppression.
That is not to excuse lying, but is also not to excuse that one
day in a New York hotel a man of great wealth with friends in high
places and a reputation for being less than gallant with the ladies
had sex with an African immigrant of great poverty with a friend in
prison.
According to her report he knocked her around and forced her to
service him. There is also the creepy detail that he never said a
word to her the whole time. Maybe the consensual part was that he
silently knew and she silently agreed that he had the power. And
she knew and he knew that she had none. But then she found it.
Whether or not the case comes to trial, he’ll still go home in
disgrace and maybe face similar charges there from a French woman.
He won’t lose his money and may still remain powerful, but evidence
shows him to be a mean, savage pathetic man who treats women badly.
And all the world knows it.
Susan Swartz is an author and local journalist. You can also
read her at www.juicytomatoes.com and hear her Another Voice
commentary on KRCB-FM radio on Fridays. Email is
su***@ju***********.com.