Virginia Guiffre has become the defacto face of sexual abuse of the vulnerable by powerful men. Her book recounting the cycle of abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell comes out next week. But we are reading excerpts in advance, and they are damning. And sad.
She wrote: “The way he viewed women and girls – as playthings to be used and discarded – is not uncommon among certain powerful men who believe they are above the law. And many of those men are still going about their daily lives, enjoying the benefits of their power.”
Her view was and is echoed by women’s rights experts and campaigners who work towards wide-ranging reforms needed to challenge deep-rooted societal and institutional misogyny.
The memoir is described as both a “personal account of unimaginable abuse” as well as “a mirror held up to a system that still enables powerful men to exploit girls and women with impunity”.
Her account exposes “the network of privilege” that protected Epstein and Maxwell. “Epstein was not an aberration, he was a symptom of a culture that normalises male entitlement and protects those at the top.”
Giuffre, who died by suicide on 25 April 2025, wrote in her book that many people were complicit in Epstein’s crimes, because they “watched and they didn’t care”.
Violence against women thrives in silence. Evidenced by the way it continues to be trivialized or outright ignored.
Throughout history, survivors who have fought to break that silence have been scrutinized, ridiculed and disbelieved – simply for having the courage to challenge not only their perpetrator, but the systems that enable misogyny to persist. We see it every day in blaming the victim for their abuse.
Survivors need to be believed. They need to supported, especially in the justice system.
We’ve seen in the Epstein case that Giuffre and her peers experienced greater backlash and negative consequences for telling their stories than most of the men they’ve accused.
In a system where there is little justice for sexual abuse survivors, there can be no realistic expectation of avoiding sexual abuse in the future.
The smoldering Epstein scandal is not going away. This book will come out and it will flare up, as it should. You can’t say Ms. Guiffre is an opportunist out to make money off of wrongly accused men. She speaks to our sense of decency as she cries for justice from beyond the grave.
Will you be one of those that stands by in silence? Protecting those who do not deserve protecting? Proving that privilege and power outweighs justice for the vulnerable?
Be the good guys. Release the Epstein files.
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