From ‘Every Man’ to the ‘Epstein Class’: Misogyny in Male Peer Culture Cuts Across Class Lines

Whether billionaires or ordinary men, misogyny thrives in every corner of society. These scandals force us to see how male culture normalizes abuse and entitlement, no matter the class.

The disturbing revelations in the Epstein files about a super-entitled and corrupt transnational elite have arrived at a time of intense distrust and anger toward the ruling class, from both the populist right and left.

It is therefore easy to see why large swaths of the commentariat (members of the news media) have gone all in with the class angle on this blockbuster affair. The villains are easy to caricature: a rich, self-serving elite that engaged in horrific abuse for many years with presumed impunity–until the walls started closing in.

As Dave Zirin wrote in The Nation, “The Epstein files have exposed that global elites have never been wealthier and more influential, but they’ve become drunk on power after decades of plunder. This second Gilded Age isn’t ending until the exposure is total …”

Plutocracy does indeed play a supporting role in the Epstein files. There’s no doubt that the wealth and power of men (and some women) in Epstein’s network gave them opportunities to sexually exploit girls and young women. It also provided them with the high-powered lawyers and political connections necessary to evade accountability.

At least until now.

But at its core, this story is about men’s violence against women. For all its unique and salacious features, the enormous cultural and political scandal that has transfixed the nation is further evidence—as if any were needed—of the ongoing global crisis of men’s sexual exploitation and abuse of girls and women. 

Contrary to the popular narrative that the case is primarily about the depravity of an unaccountable cabal of overlords, Epstein’s misogynous beliefs and practices were not an incidental feature of his appeal to the businessmen, scientists and politicians that he drew into his orbit. They were a central part of the draw.

This is not to say that class isn’t part of the story. The wealthy and prominent Epstein bros were clearly accustomed to being catered to, and getting their way. In this particular scandal, money and power played a crucial role.

But it’s important to note that misogynous exploitation—in this case or any other—is not rooted primarily in plutocratic privilege. The sense of unquestioned entitlement to women’s bodies that many observers have noted about “Epstein class” men is hardly confined to the wealthy.

Feminist researchers and journalists, along with advocates and activists in the movements against rape and domestic abuse, have long maintained that men’s violence against women transcends the categories of class, caste and socioeconomic status.

… Epstein’s misogynous beliefs and practices were not an incidental feature of his appeal to the businessmen, scientists and politicians that he drew into his orbit. They were a central part of the draw.

One way to illustrate the myopic nature of the “Epstein class” thesis is simply to juxtapose the behavior of Jeffrey Epstein’s friends and associates with those of the principals in the mass rape horror that rocked France and reverberated around the world over the past few years.

In a perverse case that unfolded in a quiet town in the southern part of the country, a 70-year-old man, Dominique Pelicot, drugged his wife, Gisèle Pelicot, and arranged to have upwards of 70 men rape her unconscious body over a 10-year period.

The Pelicot case resulted in felony rape convictions for Dominique and 50 other men in early 2025. Gisèle Pelicot became an international feminist icon when she made the fateful decision to appear in court, in full view, throughout the highly publicized trial. She did this because, she famously said, “Shame must change sides.”

All of this is back in the news because Gisèle just published a searing memoir: A Hymn to Life.

When this shocking story initially broke sometime after Dominique’s arrest in 2020, people in France and around the world denounced him and decried his monstrous crime. But the public’s attention turned quickly to the 50 men who had been identified and arrested. Many asked: How could so many otherwise “normal” men do something so callous and cruel?

In fact, the men’s life histories were so conventional that in French media, the story acquired the nickname “Monsieur tout le Monde”: Mr. Everyman.

In media accounts, the class background of the Frenchmen was alluded to, but rarely mentioned as an explanatory factor. Commentators emphasized the “ordinary” characteristics of the men: They were firefighters, farm workers, soldiers, journalists, nurses, forklift operators. Many were fathers or grandfathers.

But unlike in the Epstein case, few analysts attributed the men’s misogynous behavior to their class standing. Perhaps the pundits didn’t want to engage in crude, classist stereotyping? They were described, instead, as normal guys, albeit ones who had seized the opportunity for a kinky—and ultimately criminal—sort of sexual gratification.

Media accounts did note that many of the men had been physically or sexually abused as children; over the years, several had faced criminal charges for domestic violence. But media commentary rarely attributed their behavior to them being working or middle-class.

… The solution to rape … is to focus on influential parts of male culture—such as the online misogynous manosphere and porn culture—that play such outsized roles in the sexual socialization of heterosexual boys and young men.  

The reason why any of this matters is that media spectacles like the Epstein files or the Pelicot case serve an important societal function. A core tenet in the cultural studies field is that these spectacles are a kind of public pedagogy. They help shape our view of the world: what is right and wrong, who has legitimate claims to authority and who doesn’t, who is allowed to exercise force and violence, and who isn’t.

Massive media coverage of the Pelicot case, for example, contributed to growing public awareness of the fact that the perpetrators of sexual violence are often otherwise “normal” guys, and not the hideous monsters they’re often imagined to be.

In the fullness of time, the case might be regarded as a turning point—or at least a marker—of a shift in popular consciousness about the ubiquity of sexual violence: how it’s less about the bad behavior of pathological individuals, and more about the normalization of rape-supportive beliefs, or what feminists have labeled “rape culture.”

In other words, the solution to rape isn’t to fix one broken man after the other. It’s to focus on influential parts of male culture—such as the online misogynous manosphere and porn culture—that play such outsized roles in the sexual socialization of heterosexual boys and young men.  

As I’ve long contended: if it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to raise a rapist.

Which brings us back to the popularity of the Epstein class thesis about a “pampered and unaccountable elite” that is responsible for all manner of unspeakable abuse.

The Epstein files might have exposed the nefarious activities of a network of entitled aristocrats and global jet setters. But a relentless focus on the class privilege of the men in Epstein’s circle inevitably has the effect of “othering” them in a way that creates distance from average guys.

There’s no question that the rich men surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, and the working and middle-class men who were lured into Dominique Pelicot’s twisted fantasy, navigate the social world from very different sides of the class chasm.

But they share something in common, too: They’re all men who were socialized into a misogynous culture that dehumanizes women, turns them into sexual commodities and licenses men to mistreat them.

For all their tragic elements, these scandals might eventually come to be seen as part of a cultural inflection point. Because they involve appalling behavior by large numbers of men—as perpetrators, enablers and bystanders—there’s a way in which they hold up a mirror to every man. In effect, they challenge us to reflect on whether we want to see ourselves as part of the problem … or part of the solution.