In a trenchant column, Guardian columnist Marina Hyde argues that the media and public focus on the political fallout from the latest Jeffrey Epstein files is a deliberate distraction from the core issue: the mass abuse of women and girls. She contends that the frenzy over figures like Peter Mandelson, who offered Epstein image rehab advice but was not involved in sexual abuse, serves as a 'mass displacement activity' driven by men unwilling to confront how powerful men talk about women.
Hyde points to Melinda French Gates, who fronted up to a podcast while many male associates of Epstein remained silent. French Gates stated that questions about Epstein are for those people and her ex-husband Bill Gates, adding she was 'so happy to be away from all the muck'. However, Hyde dismisses the notion that society is having a 'reckoning', arguing instead that the focus on political scandal avoids reckoning with misogyny.
The column also highlights the role of Steve Bannon, who interviewed Epstein in 2018-2019. In the footage, Epstein claimed to support Time's Up, and Bannon later repackaged it into a documentary. Correspondence from file dumps shows Bannon suggesting Epstein establish 'THE major center for human trafficking' as a survival strategy. Hyde notes that only Epstein's arrest in 2019 prevented the possible creation of 'The Jeffrey Epstein Underage Sex Trafficking Foundation', a fake philanthropy that would have attracted wealthy donors.
Hyde concludes that the files reveal how the most powerful men in the world think about women and girls, and that the current obsession with political fallout is a conscious or subconscious choice to avoid that reckoning. She laments that the scandal is being reduced to party politics rather than the systemic abuse and enabling by elite men.
