Epstein: A Radical Feminist Analysis

When another, massive batch of Epstein files were released in January of 2026, the global audience was easily divided into two groups: those who were surprised and those who weren’t. Some people were, and still are, shocked that it happened at all. Others were shocked at the magnitude. The final straw for many was the involvement of particular men who had been thought to be “good ones” — Noam Chomsky, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Dawkins, to name a few. 

Radical feminists were, on the whole, not surprised by any of this. Why? Because radical feminists study patriarchy; and sexual exploitation of women and girls by men is at the heart of gender, which is patriarchy’s arsenal for enforcing women’s femininity/subjugation and men’s masculinity/domination. Gender in all its forms needs to be abolished, and trafficking is a particularly potent form. Creating a sexually exploited sex class (women and girls) benefits all men. Reifying the idea that nature or God or any well-functioning order requires women and girls’ only significant societal contributions to be framed as providing sexual and child-producing services has been effective in substantially removing women from the public activities of politics and finance, and in that way creating the economic benefit of a quasi-slave class available to all men.

What follows is a radical feminist analysis of a few elements of the Epstein case.

• Epstein was, unfortunately, not unique.

• Women are both victims and enforcers of male domination.

• All men benefit from patriarchy (the systemic domination of the female sex class by the male sex class).
  
• There is a strong association between sexual exploitation and gender identity ideology.

• How can women dismantle the institution of sex trafficking?
  
• Where can we go from here?

Epstein wasn’t a unique “monster”

While Jeffrey Epstein may have been higher-profile, wealthier, and better connected than most men, his behavior is, unfortunately, not unique. Most men may not have the resources to create an empire the way Epstein did, but that doesn’t make Epstein’s actions uniquely abhorrent, just better resourced. Traffickers, pimps, johns, and abusers of women and children can be found anywhere: in all countries, all classes, and all subcultures.

Today, every man can have his own, customized, virtual “island” in the form of the pornography freely accessible on any smartphone. Digital prostitution platforms like OnlyFans go further by adding an interactive element through the fulfillment of custom requests and live interactions.

Even “regular” internet pornography is not fundamentally different from Epstein’s sexual exploitation. It is well established that the pornography industry is rife with grooming, forced or encouraged drug dependency, financial and physical coercion, and other abuse. There is no way to know the circumstances of the sexual activities depicted in any given pornography. Was the woman consenting to the sex? Was she even an adult? Was she consenting to be filmed? Was she consenting to the film being shared? Is she still consenting? Even if she was and is consenting, to what extent does that matter? Some things (e.g., homicide, slavery) are considered so harmful to society that consent doesn’t make them acceptable.  

Over and over again, porn websites have been exposed for knowingly hosting filmed rape, for knowingly hosting child sexual abuse material, and for ignoring victims’ requests for videos to be taken down. 

Researchers, including Melissa Farley and others, have argued that “pornography should be legally and conceptually understood as one variant of prostitution and trafficking.” Somehow, the fact that pornography is filmed causes people to see it as more benign. Not only is pornography a form of prostitution and trafficking in terms of the grooming and coercion that lead women and children to it and make it difficult for them to leave, but pornography use tends to escalate and actually drives demand for physical access to victims. Interdisciplinary research on childhood violence has found that “a causal relationship exists between adult and juvenile males’ exposure to child pornography […] and their perpetration of child sexual victimization.” 

It’s not just Epstein. Over 80% of adult men have consumed pornography and 50% of men under 26 consume it at least weekly. Many, many people and institutions are complicit in the ongoing exploitation of women and children.

It’s patriarchy, so women are its victims. But also its enforcers.

One of the most disheartening aspects of the Epstein story, perhaps especially for feminists, has been the extent of Ghislaine Maxwell’s involvement as a perpetrator of sexual trafficking of women and girls. Exchanging sex (whether in the form of porn videos, use of prostitutes, or pimping) for money is usually framed as an industry created by and for men — for men’s pleasure and profit — in which the goods and services provided to male customers are the bodies of women and children. 

But the madam, or woman pimp, is not new. That role was well known, if somewhat glamorized, in 19th-century popular culture, and written about in such American classics as Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell, 1936) and in many descriptions of madams in the Wild West (e.g., this article about “Dutch Anne” on the website of Tombstone, Arizona’s Chamber of Commerce). And it seems likely the role is much older than that. Assuming a prostituted woman survives into middle age, the value of her direct sexual services diminishes severely. But her contacts and her experience are marketable. If women as a class have their access to life’s necessities restricted either to selling sex to strangers or exchanging sex, childbearing, and other services on demand for food and shelter provided at the option of a husband, becoming a pimp may reasonably appear to be the best choice for personal survival.

In the case of the Epstein-Maxwell enterprise, it appears that girls aged out even before reaching middle age, and were then persuaded to traffic younger women and girls themselves. This mechanism had two benefits to Epstein and Maxwell: The young women recruited into pimping would expand the business enterprise, and they would be unlikely to report to law enforcement once they had become complicit.

The use of adult women to enforce patriarchy’s interests on girls can readily be seen anywhere in the world. Having women perform female genital mutilation shields men from girls’ hatred. Additionally, this terrible injury, signaling girls’ subordination to men but done by the hands of women, severs the natural common bond among all women, and between mothers and daughters especially. After all, if it were the cultural norm for older women to protect younger women and girls from men’s domination and violence, women and girls might develop fierce loyalty, devotion, and admiration for each other across generations. The resulting bonds would not serve patriarchy well.  

The use of older women to deliver vulnerable girls to the sexual violence of men, and then to make the girls complicit a few years later, serves the same patriarchal purpose, creating distrust of women’s motives and ability to protect anyone. And victims’ complicity in trafficking encourages not appropriate anger toward men, but contempt for women, along with shame and guilt.

But shame due to porn can be created in women even without their actual participation. It is now possible, thanks to “deepfake” techniques, to convert a photograph of a random, clothed woman into what appears to be a photograph of that woman naked and in what appear to be compromising circumstances not in the original. Such altered images can be used not just for sale to the public, but for purposes of blackmail.

How can radical feminists oppose patriarchy’s consistent destruction of a primary bond among women and girls?

• Forgive each other as women. This requires understanding that women are disempowered by patriarchy, and it is patriarchy that makes it challenging for women to make woman-centered choices while also surviving in economic and other arenas.
  
• Develop a structural analysis in collaboration with other women to enhance all women’s understanding of what structures and which individuals are creating challenges that women and girls are faced with universally. This requires intentional discussion with other women as equals, all sharing their experiences, finding common threads, and jointly figuring out who benefits from our challenges. Follow the benefits. This needs to be an ongoing project among groups of women, a completely different process from psychotherapy, and possibly in contradiction to it. We are suggesting feminist consciousness raising groups or something like them.
  
• Radical feminism 101 has advised since the 1960s that to be free, women must avoid participating in our own oppression. We understand that this is an ideal, and that we all have made compromises in the interests of individual daily survival. But when faced with a patriarchal challenge to our feminist integrity, it may be possible to prioritize an evaluation of our choices with the aim of minimizing participation in the oppression of women, including ourselves. Feminist consciousness raising, or something like it, can strengthen every woman in the group. Structural analysis can make such hard personal choices clearer, and group support can make woman-centered choices easier to carry out.

Yes, it’s all men.

All men are members of the oppressor group and benefit from male supremacy, because male supremacy is designed to benefit all men and only men. The oppressor group even includes those men who are marginalized in other ways, or who understand structural analysis in other contexts (race, economic class, etc.). In 2025, Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced to a little over four years for transporting human beings for exploitation, something we thought ended in America more than 200 years ago.  The brutal history of his ancestors mattered little to him. Power and privilege were his priorities. Unfortunately, he’s not alone in his blatant disregard for the inhumanity his ancestors faced. Black men are among those who engage in modern day American slavery. In fact, Black men make up a disproportionate share of those involved in the sex trafficking of minors. But much of the writing on this subject paints them as victims getting caught instead of perpetrators of paid rape. This makes a mockery of Black women who are 40% of trafficking victims, while being only 7% (approximately) of the US population:

 “First, between 2005 and 2015, 57 percent of the defendants in minor sex-trafficking cases are black — compared with 43 percent in adult sex-trafficking cases and only 18 percent in labor trafficking.”

This discussion often turns Black male sex traffickers into victims by framing Black men as being disproportionately convicted as opposed to expressing concern for trafficking victims. The perpetrator-as-victim narrative is also applied to undocumented and legal immigrants. For example, four men were arrested in April 2025 for running a Connecticut prostitution ring. The predators, Ecuadorian nationals,  targeted minors. Their names are: Oswaldo Ordonez-Ortega, 39, of Danbury, Marco Robles, 40, Edwin Quilli-Tacuri, 40, and Bryan Ismael Vasquez-Salinas, 23. With regard to sex trafficking among documented and undocumented immigrants, young undocumented women are often victims. The men-as-victims narrative, coupled with anti-immigrant and antiblack frameworks, leaves Black women and immigrant women without adequate support from either their own communities or White-majority communities. 

We all read in shock at the recent statement made by farm worker and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta. She revealed that the “beloved” Mexican-American labor and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, not only pressured her into a sexual encounter, he at another point raped her.  The sexual violence she endured led to two pregnancies. She subsequently gave both children up for adoption in order to make a more stable life possible for them. Huerta resolved to walk in courage and tell her story. This is courageous because civil rights leaders are the ones who fight for the powerless, the marginalized. For a civil rights leader to engage in the very thing his followers are fighting against is the ultimate act of betrayal. Not only did Chavez brand himself to be a freedom fighter, he was also a “man of color,” a fellow victim of an oppressive system, a partner in the struggle for freedom. This revelation is a painful reality that race and class do not erase a man’s desire for power and control. 

Disabled men should not be excluded as oppressors of women through paid rape. Sex is not a human right, even for the disabled. According to an article from ABC Australia, a disabled man named William uses government funds to visit prostitutes because he had felt isolated and suicidal, and had been a victim of relentless bullying in his youth. His solution, although he may not see it as such, is to perpetuate the sexual exploitation of women. Structuring this as a form of therapy for the disabled makes this exploitation of women and girls even more insidious. According to a study by the Center for Impact Research, violence against prostitutes is common. This is true whether they are confined to the streets or are so-called high-end escorts. The study informs us that some escorts have been raped more than 10 times. To put it bluntly, prostitution is a dangerous job in and of itself. It negatively impacts the victim emotionally and physically. To suggest that disabled men should be excused for seeking out prostituted women for paid rape is the epitome of patriarchal oppression. It does not matter if disabled men may be less violent. The victim is still at risk for sexually transmitted diseases and impaired emotional health. 

Since being members of an oppressed group does not remove men’s ability and inclination to oppress women,  it should not absolve them of culpability as oppressors, regardless of the oppression they face.

The gender identity ideology connection

When the news broke that Epstein had corresponded with prominent figures associated with gender identity ideology, what radical feminist could honestly say that she was surprised? 

For years, radical feminists have spoken about the pedophilia and homophobia underlying gender identity ideology, only to be ridiculed. We were called paranoid for saying that puberty blockers will create a class of people who are legally of age but with childlike bodies (not to mention lowered IQs), and that “transgenderism” is nothing but modern-day conversion therapy. We were mocked for pointing out the links between gender identity ideology and fetishism. 

Now we know that in 2018, evolutionary biologist Dr. Robert Trivers wrote Epstein:

“We are increasingly capable of producing novel phenotypes — more feminine men, by blocking testosterone receptors (or castration) and, at the same time, increasing estrogen production… so that if your fantasy is to suck a man’s dick, otherwise you are completely heterosexual, it would be much nicer if the rest of the organism is female, then you get the best of both worlds.“

“So many transsexual women are very attractive and easily make money which in turn they assert promotes their prostitution since they have to pay hefty fees for [hormone] injections every week,” Trivers wrote. “But they are sexually happy.” Reading between the lines, these are gay men who, having undergone a modern-day form of conversion therapy via irreversible hormones and surgeries, resort to prostitution in order to maintain their facade of “femininity.” 

The email concludes: 

“BTW we are now pushing the intervention earlier–so you notice your 3-year old son has trans tendencies, so now you intervene with hormones–i would be frightened to do that–but who knows?“

Writing for The Distance, Matt Osborne reports that Epstein claimed to be Trivers’s “major funder” since Trivers was fired from Rutgers in 2015 “for reasons unrelated to Epstein or transition surgeries on children.” 

Dr. Jess Ting, a plastic surgeon at Mount Sinai in New York, became the surgical director for the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in 2016 — according to Ting, “the first
full-spectrum academic program in the US focused on transgender surgery and care.” 

In 2018, Dr. Ting and Dr. Marci Bowers performed Jazz Jennings’s “vaginoplasty” when Jazz was only 17 years old. The two doctors, filmed for season five of the TLC reality show I Am Jazz, were caught on camera arguing in the operating room about cuts Bowers had already made. Jazz would go on to say that “[his] vagina [sic] falling apart was the hardest thing [he] ever experienced.” He was hospitalized for three weeks due to the initial complications, and underwent multiple revision surgeries. 

Searches of the Department of Justice Epstein Library database for “Jess Ting” or “Dr. Ting” return more than 1,000 results, including a trip to Little St. John and late-night visits to Epstein’s Manhattan home, as well as medical consultations and surgical procedures for women described as Epstein’s “friends.” 

Once again, the radical feminists were right — this time, about characterizing “gender identity” as inherently sexually exploitative. 

How can women dismantle the institution of sex trafficking?

Jeffrey Epstein presumably didn’t set out to make radical feminism’s case that sex trafficking is the logical expression of patriarchy and the objectification of women and girls. But that is what he achieved. His island was patriarchy in microcosm, structured around the exercise of male power unconstrained by law or ethics. Never dreaming that their behavior would come to light, Epstein and the prominent men he cultivated did exactly what they wanted to do — rape and traffic young women and girls. 

The pervasive, entrenched institution of trafficking dehumanizes every woman and girl with its implicit message that men are entitled to sex, and that the sexual services of every woman and girl are, or should be, available to any man having the requisite cash and/or connections. That is, if some women and girls are legitimately available for some price, and if men have an entitlement or biological need or right to sex, the effect is that all women and girls are evaluated in the first instance for their potential as men’s sexual prey. The normalization and pervasiveness of this primary evaluation harms us all irreparably as we try to achieve agency and control over our own lives.

How can women fight entrenched male power? Each section of this analysis has suggested answers: We can understand how patriarchy controls women’s lives. We can refute the pro-trafficking argument that men have a right to sex, including the right to buy sex. We can recognize that pornography and prostitution are harmful to all women, not just those caught up in trafficking. We can acknowledge the complicity of some women in women’s exploitation and work to replace division among women with the bonds of cooperation and community. We can stop being naǐve about how gender identity ideology dehumanizes all women’s bodies. 

And we can greatly diminish sex trafficking, even as we continue to struggle to dismantle patriarchy in all its forms. We have a blueprint: The Nordic model targets the market for sex by criminalizing the exploitation of women and girls by pimps and traffickers and the purchase of sex by johns. At the same time, it attacks the personal and societal factors that make women and girls vulnerable to trafficking by offering them the economic, social, and emotional support to leave prostitution, including housing, education, and career training to earn a living wage. It trains police officers to see trafficked women and girls as victims, not criminals, and challenges society to recognize women and girls as fully human, with the same right as men to bodily autonomy.

Between 1999, when Sweden adopted the Nordic model, and 2008, when the Swedish government studied its impact, street prostitution dropped by half; the incidence of men paying for sex dropped from 12.5% to 7.7%, and trafficking fell in comparison to neighboring Denmark, where prostitution is legalized. Norway, Iceland, France, Canada, Ireland, and others followed Sweden’s lead, with similar results. In 2023, Maine Governor Janet Mills signed LD1435: An Act to Reduce Commercial Sexual Exploitation, the first US state law adopting the Nordic model. In drafting and arguing for the bill, State Representative Lois Galway Reckitt framed prostitution as a form of violence against women, and explained her “proud sponsorship” of the legislation with the simple statement, “I believe that people should not be criminalized for crimes that are happening to them.”

How can we get there from here?

Join forces!

If you haven’t already done so, sign the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, then become a WDI USA volunteer. We have teams working on both state legislative advocacy and ending male violence against women and girls. 

Inform yourself about trafficking in your state 

• Trafficking is endemic and overlaps with other women’s rights issues, such as pornography and surrogacy.
  
• Learn how your state defines trafficking. What are its procedures for handling suspected trafficking?
  
• Research your state’s services and other resources for victims of trafficking. For example, does your state provide resources to adult victims of trafficking or only to victims below a certain age? Does it offer housing or shelter for trafficked women and their children? Does it offer treatment for substance abuse, which is often coerced and/or used as a form of coping?

Push back against the arguments that normalize the exploitation of women and girls

• No one has a right to sexual relations.
  
• Prostitution harms all women and girls, not just those who are prostituted.
  
• Prostitution isn’t economic empowerment, and it isn’t inevitable.
  
• Opposition to sexual exploitation isn’t partisan or narrow-minded.
  
• Trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation are neither entirely sex-based nor sex-neutral. Although some boys and men are trafficked, the large majority of victims are girls and women, and most apex traffickers are men. 

Question everything

• Does this organization, program, legislation, or journalism put victims of trafficking first or “balance” victims’ needs with leniency toward perpetrators?
  
• Does its language downplay the exploitation of women? For example, does it normalize trafficking by calling it “sex work”?
  
• Do its arguments conflate sex with gender (meaning sex-based stereotypes of masculinity and femininity) and so-called gender identity to justify giving men access to women’s spaces, services, and rights?
  
• Does it force-team anti-trafficking legislation, policies, and programs with unrelated, often detrimental, causes like legalizing prostitution or mandating the inclusion of men who call themselves women in counseling or housing for female victims of trafficking?
  
• Does it acknowledge that trafficking is overwhelmingly a crime against women and girls and fundamentally a crime perpetrated by men?

Advocate!

• Advocate for the Nordic model, which criminalizes the buying but not the selling of sex, offering support to victims while allowing pimps and johns to be prosecuted.
  
• Press law enforcement and the courts to make investigating and prosecuting trafficking a priority. Jeffrey Epstein’s collaborators continued to have cultural, economic, and political influence for years after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes. Sex trafficking’s harms to women and girls should be primary in such investigations and prosecutions, and not, for example, government secrets that may have been used in payment. 
• Advocate for stricter penalties for traffickers. Is there legislation pending in your state to strengthen — or weaken — legal sanctions against trafficking? Trafficking provisions are often written into legislation addressing violence against women and girls in general.

Jeffrey Epstein, Sean Combs, Cesar Chavez — the alarms keep sounding, the occasional star is prosecuted, but the massive underground fires keep burning. How can we all extinguish them, at their source, working together? Share your comments below and on social media, including ideas for other issues WDI USA should address from a radical feminist perspective.

The WDI USA Board of Directors
Elizabeth Chesak
Katherine Kinney
Lauren Levey
Lorraine Nowlin
Holly Stewart

Image credit: Workshop of Hieronymous Bosch, Tondal’s Vision, late 15th c. Collection of the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid 

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