Four years, almost to the day, have passed since Shaïna’s assassination. The 15-year-old girl was stabbed and then burned alive by her boyfriend, most likely after announcing her pregnancy. Two years before, she had already been the victim of a collective sexual assault. The two cases are legally distinct, but inextricably linked.
Shaïna’s murderer – sentenced last June to eighteen years in prison – admitted to having become closer to her because of her reputation as an “easy girl”, which stuck to him after her sexual assault. In La Reputation, Investigation into the making of “easy girls” (ed. Les Echappées), journalist Laure Daussy returns to the weight of these rumors. Who are these girls we call “easy”? How are these reputations born? How do the first concerned people experience it? Interview.
By investigating the death of Shaïna in Creil, you noted that all your interlocutors were outraged by the assassination of this young girl, but that opinions were much less clear-cut when it came to condemning her sexual assault. How do you explain this difference?
All the people I met unanimously condemned this assassination. On the other hand, I spoke with some boys who continued to question his words on rape [requalifié en agression sexuelle] that Shaina suffered when she was 13, two years before her death. They say she made it all up, that because of her, boys were in prison. Which is false, because they were convicted but not incarcerated. This statement is quite revealing of the way in which some boys minimize sexual violence. The problem is that in this case, everything is linked. Her attackers gave her the reputation of an “easy girl”, propagated the idea that it was she who wanted to have sex.
However, this reputation will lead to his downfall…
Exactly. When Shaina meets the man who will become her murderer and falls in love with him, she has no idea that he has become closer to her precisely because she is considered an “easy girl”. He tells himself that he is sure he can have sex. When she becomes pregnant, he prefers to murder her rather than tarnish his own reputation. During my investigation, a father also told me that he would prefer to have a son in prison rather than a “dragged” daughter. This says a lot about what is expected of these young women: if they do not respect a whole bunch of prohibitions, they are not worthy of being respected.
You met many of Shaïna’s friends, who told you about living with this permanent fear of a bad reputation. How does this materialize?
For these young girls, having the reputation of an “easy girl” is experienced as the worst thing that can happen to them. And the Shaïna affair created a sort of example. It’s a way of telling them “be careful, if you don’t respect the rules, look at what could happen to you”. To avoid falling into this category, they will comply with a certain number of prohibitions. They give up wearing light clothing, such as dresses or skirts. They never appear with a boy in the street, even when he is not their boyfriend. When they have a boyfriend, they are particularly discreet. The absolute taboo is virginity. If a girl agrees to have sex with a boy, she will be considered to be able to say “yes” to everyone.
The notion of “easy girl” seems particularly broad…
We are considered an “easy girl” for anything and everything. Because we dare to be free, to go out, to fall in love. But also when you are a victim. This was the case for Shaïna after her rape. Reputation is a tool of control and revenge. A young woman I met quite by chance told me that she had been the victim of this label when she was in middle school, after having refused the advances of a boy. To take revenge, he invented sexual relations, spreading the idea that she was an easy girl. In her class, she was bullied. She ended up leaving high school. Years later, when she was about to get married, her future husband received a call: “Do you know your wife is a whore? “.
Who are those who launch and maintain these reputations?
The women I spoke with spoke to me about “them” to refer to those who spread these rumors, without ever naming or identifying them. To be honest, it’s quite complicated to draw up an identikit. Some are 18 years old, others are fathers. Obviously not all men maintain these rumors, it’s a minority. On the other hand, their words carry, they have a real power to cause harm.
Your survey also shows that women participate in these injunctions…
Girls sometimes relay these reputations. It is an injunction so powerful that it is sometimes difficult to escape from it. For mothers, it is an insoluble dilemma. One of them told me that she knew she was “imprisoning” her daughter by forbidding her from a whole bunch of things but in this context, it was also a way of protecting her.
Your investigation concerns Creil. Is this question of reputations confined to sensitive neighborhoods?
Sexual and gender-based violence is everywhere, in all segments of society. On the other hand, I think that there is a specificity in more working-class neighborhoods: the exacerbation of reputation. Creil functions a bit like a village, in isolation. Everyone knows each other, everything is known. The control and surveillance of the daily lives of young girls are more significant. Everywhere in society, the image we convey matters, but to different degrees. The prohibitions and consequences will not be the same.