(lengthy, depressing, important read about patriarchy and trumpstein’s ugly world)
Sex and snacks, but no seat at the table: the role of women in Epstein’s sordid men’s club
Amelia Gentleman
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Files reveal a world of flattery and fratboy tones, where rich men are cultivated and women provide services
Sat 7 Feb 2026 01.00 EST
Pluck an email at random from the millions in the Department of Justice’s Epstein Library. It is a Saturday evening in February 2013, and Jeffrey Epstein is messaging Bill Gates’s assistant about guests for a dinner he wants to organise. “People for Bill,” the email begins. Epstein starts listing possible candidates: the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the film director Woody Allen, the prime minister of Qatar, a couple of Harvard academics, the billionaire CEO of Hyatt hotels, a White House communications director, a former US secretary of defence. He names 10 powerful men, before suggesting “Anne Hathaway (really)”. Epstein has to make it clear, with the bracketed word, that he is not joking when he proposes that a woman might join them at the table. The lists ends tentatively: “victoria secret models?” Epstein wonders: “Who on the list do you think he would enjoy the most?”
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Photograph: US Department of Justice
The Epstein files reveal a patriarchy in action. This is a world where the men are rich and powerful, and the women are not. The emails showcase the private behaviour of a male ruling class, as they network, joke and trade information. Women exist at the periphery, tolerated because they organise the diaries of the busy men, they arrange food, they grace a table, they provide sex. A typical email from Epstein to a man in his network will say: “Head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee Thorbjorn Jagland will be staying in ny with me. You might find him interesting.” Epstein is writing to Richard Branson in characteristic style, combining some casual showing off with an offer to share access to someone else influential. A typical email from Epstein to a woman might say: “Take a selfie of your pussy and send.”
Spend three days rummaging through the chaotic, sprawling, sordid pit of information contained in the Epstein files, and you learn valuable lessons about how this modern global patriarchy operates: through flattery, the exchange of favours and occasional curt reminders of who owes what to whom. For women, these files offer an unprecedented chance to eavesdrop on conversations from which they are usually excluded. They provide salutary insights into what a set of distinguished global figures think and say about women when they assume the women aren’t listening.
There are two groups of people in the Epstein files. The men: the billionaires, the tech entrepreneurs, the bankers, statespeople, politicians, leaders, people who need to be cultivated because they offer Epstein ways to strengthen his network of influence. And the women, who exist as insignificant plus-ones, or as people to whom he doles out money because they are providing him with services. Women feature as objects to be looked at and improved – teeth seen to, weight lost, STDs treated, features fixed. (“You might want to see a doctor about reducing the nose a little before you turn 23,” Epstein suggests to an unnamed woman in July 2017.) The emails show that Epstein is often irritated by the women.
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