Born in Tunis to a modest jewish family, Gisèle Halimi protested gender norms her entire life. She began her legal career defending independents and denouncing the French army’s torture of Algerian people.
Along with Simone de Beauvoir and through highly meducated trials she later played a key role into legalizing abortion in 1975 and into redefining rape as a crime rather than as a misdemeanor (1980).