What Boys Learn When Powerful Men Face No Consequences (trigger warning)

(and the MISOGYNIST, PATRIARCHAL, THEOCRATIC, CHRISTOFASCIST WAR ON WOMEN continues apace)


What Boys Learn When Powerful Men Face No Consequences (trigger warning)
PUBLISHED 11/21/2025 by Jackson Katz


Accountability, or its absence, sends a powerful message to young men and boys.



A billboard in Times Square, paid for by the group Home of the Brave, highlights Jeffrey Epstein’s comment that Donald Trump “of course … knew about the girls,” on Nov. 17, 2025 in New York City. (Adam Gray / Getty Images)

This analysis originally appeared on In the Arena with Jackson Katz, under the headline “Will Trump Finally Pay a Price for His Misogyny?”

Donald Trump is in political trouble over the Epstein files, but it remains to be seen just how serious and lasting it will be. One superpower he has displayed throughout his lifetime in the public eye is a savant-like ability to evade accountability for his innumerable misdeeds, sexual misconduct, corrupt practices and petty cruelties.This includes, of course, his long history of misogynous comments and behaviors. As the dominant political figure in the U.S. over the past decade, and the man with arguably the most ubiquitous media presence in the Global North and perhaps the entire world, he’s played a central role in the sexual objectification of women and girls and the normalization of misogyny.

Until now, he’s largely gotten away with it. Over the years, he’s had some awkward and uncomfortable moments, like when the “grab ‘em by the pussy” clip went viral a month before the 2016 election, and he was forced to make a rare apology. He has survived dozens of credible accusations of sexual assault and harassment, but in 2023 he was found liable by a New York City jury for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, and ordered by a judge to pay millions in damages. But somehow he’s been able to weather those crises, either by bullying his friends and allies in politics and media into complicit silence, or by distracting people with reality TV-like stunts. That’s worked for him in the past. But for a variety of reasons, and as many pundits have observed, the Epstein files scandal feels different. Nonetheless, it’s still far from clear whether Trump ultimately will be held accountable for his actions—or inactions—over the course of his long friendship with the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, our era’s most notorious and prolific sexual abuser of girls. Will this finally be the moment when Trump pays a real price for his misogyny?

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Sky and Amanda Roberts—brother and sister-in-law of the late Virginia Giuffre—at a Sept. 3 press conference with lawmakers, survivors and their supporters demanding passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would force the government to release its full files on Epstein and his enablers. (Jenny Warburg)


Commentators in both mainstream and independent media tend to see the Epstein files as a traditional scandal, with an initial crime(s), followed by an even more damaging cover-up. Feminists, by contrast, understand the transgressions of Epstein and his associates not merely as the depredations of individual bad actors, but as the product of deep systemic misogyny.In this case, a deeper systemic analysis includes recognition of the fact that accountability goes far beyond Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and the many powerful and wealthy men whose sexual exploitation of vulnerable girls and women they facilitated. It might be tempting—and oddly comforting—to “monsterize” these perpetrators. People across the political spectrum can decry the evil and sick pedos! But the urge to pathologize the abusers, while understandable, diminishes the urgency of calls for broader societal introspection. Part of that introspection involves acknowledging the unpleasant reality that *************the sexual exploitation of women and girls is a ubiquitous feature of American commercial culture in the 21st century, from images in mainstream advertising, to the sexualized cruelty of misogynous porn that is readily available at the touch of a button.*************
. . . . .


Donald Trump, his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss (later Melania Trump), Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Feb. 12, 2000. (Davidoff Studios / Getty Images)

. . . .
Thousands of emails from Epstein’s estate have already been released by the House Oversight Committee that reveal the depth and scale of Epstein’s sexual abuse and exploitation of teenage girls, some as young as 13 or 14. Alongside these revelations comes growing evidence of Donald Trump’s active complicity—including knowledge about, and possibly direct participation in—this unimaginable depravity. Much of the documentary evidence reaffirms what we already know from the brave testimony of numerous survivors. The challenge this poses to supporters of the president is clear, especially adults responsible for the socialization of boys and young men: parents, mentors, teachers, coaches and influential voices in media, along with faith, community and political leaders at all levels. They can choose—for whatever reason—to deny and/or minimize the negative impact on young people of the president’s long-running relationship to the notorious rapist and sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.But they need to know that the cost of them shirking their responsibility to hold the president and other powerful men accountable for aiding, abetting and participating in misogynous abuse is a growing societal acceptance of men’s violence against women, and all the tragedy and suffering that comes with it.

https://msmagazine.com/2025/11/21/boys-men-learn-trump-epstein-abuse-women-violence-masculinity/