Epstein’s crimes were made possible by domestic sexism

We see that Epstein’s network has reached Ukraine. And those people who worked there, who recruited teenagers for the entertainment of the rich, are not isolated freaks. This is an entire industry in which people have been going “to work” for decades. Epstein is the tip of the iceberg, there are many other pornographic sales channels that are still operating.

Why is this possible?

The pyramid of violence

Source: Gender in details

Advertising:

If you look at the pyramid of violence, you will see a system – how some “jokes”, such as the owner of a food supplement business decided to hype, become the base from which crimes grow.

And they don’t just grow up – it is this everyday normalization of violence that makes society unable to fight it effectively.

This is well shown in the fresh Ukrainian series “A quiet nave“, which is about a town in which rapes have been going on for several years, and the local police hide the truth.

If joking about rape is funny, then maybe rape itself is not such a crime?

In 2016, during the flash mob #яНеБоюсьСказати, when Ukrainian women shared their experiences of violence (by the way, a year before #me_too), public figures wrote all kinds of abominations. For example, Yuriy Vinnychuk:

“The new flash mob moved me. I remembered how I was a baby, and even what I was thinking then. There was an uncontrollable desire to fall again to the healing spring. As the Moscow poet of the 18th century wrote, “Oh woman, oh mother! Allow yourself to be kissed!”.

After 10 years, the tone of the conversation has changed a lot. The exposure of the empire of violence is met with condemnation, although the aspect of secular chronicles about the lives of the overseas rich is preserved.

I want to return the Ukrainian audience to our realities, and together look at the base of the pyramid of violence – domestic sexism. What is the state of affairs in 2026? Are we paving the way for future Epsteins?

The expert resource “Gender in Details” has been running the #sexism_patrol since 2021, and we have been awarding the Anti-Sexist of the Year Award since 2023. In order to destroy the very base of violence, the institution of reputation greatly improves all social institutions.

This year’s collection of sexists big and bright. Here are some “patients”.

You can choose the winner of the Anti-Premium “Sexist of the Year – 2025” here.

The most important trend for 2025 is institutional backwardness. Whether it’s generational differences or organizational inertia, I’m not entirely sure, but the examples of institutional failure to respond to public opinion this year are truly astounding.

The most striking example is the awarding of the “Golden Dzyga” film award to the actor Kostyantyn Temlyak, while he has been charged with violence and criminal proceedings have been opened against him. The Film Academy justified itself by saying that the decision was taken prior to the accusations, and the statute and procedures do not provide for the possibility of cancellation. It is as if the voting procedure in a public association is the Constitution of Ukraine and its change requires 300 votes of deputies, a referendum and the lifting of martial law.

In the end, the accused actor himself behaved in the most appropriate way and simply refused the award. And the Film Academy made changes to the regulations several months later, after intervention Miller Law Firm.

There was a lot more like that.

Yuriy Vynnychuk wrote the column “Once upon a time there was a lewd era”, which could have been quite good if the editors of the Zbruch media had done their job. That is, they corrected the author’s carelessness and slightly edited the text so that it does not read that Yuriy is nostalgic for the times when the rape of a drunk girl, or a teacher who shoves his hands into a student’s bosom right during the lesson, was normalized.

But the editors did not work, the column turned out to be sexist and disgusting. The Executive Council of the Ukrainian PEN worked, excluding Vinnychuk from the organization. What provoked an enchanting internal discussion, where, of course, “Hunweibins and Komsomol members” could not be dispensed with. For some reason, everyone who defends the ethics of public statements seems to the older generation to be “Komsomol”.

In the end, the General Assembly, which has a higher authority over the decision of the Executive Council, held a secret vote, where out of 116 registered, 42 voted “for” the exclusion, 74 – “against”. So Yuriy Vynnychuk remained a member of the Ukrainian PEN. Because although the key principle of this writer’s organization is that freedom of speech is not absolute and is combined with ethical responsibility for public statements, and among the basic values ​​is the rejection of hate speech and discrimination, for 74 anonymous Ukrainian writers this is not an argument.

Universities also stood out. LNU named after For decades, Ivan Franko ignored the complaints of female students about harassment from Professor Yosyp Los. The elder Syvoch was released only when these stories became public at the beginning of 2025.

Andrii Bilous was awarded the title of associate professor, although for several months as students of the Karpenko-Kary KNUTKiT and actors have been protesting near the Youth Theater in Kyiv and near the KMDA, demanding the dismissal of the director from his position. The argumentation was the same as in the film academy: they say it’s a procedure, they say it’s already been awarded, they say it’s not related. He was initially removed from his position, but a month later he was reinstated as artistic director. KMDA explained this by the fact that his contract does not include liability for “immoral acts”.

After repeated protests, Bilous resigned from the theater “by agreement of the parties”.

And although I do not support the dismissal immediately after the accusation, I insist on conducting an investigation and having prepared procedures for this case, at the time of making the decisions, there was already a months-long struggle between the actors and actresses and Bilous, and any decisions of any commissions and officials should have been made with this in mind.

Half a year after these events, the Ministry of Education and Culture issued recommendations on anti-harassment procedures in universities, which, unfortunately, are not mandatory.

So in the end, as of the beginning of 2026, the institutions on which public attention has fallen in the past year are moving somewhat, but by and large they remain unable to prevent violence and effectively eliminate its base by acting preemptively.

Instead, such a state institution as the State Production and Consumer Service showed its ability. Collecting nominees for Sexist of the year anti-awardswe learned about many cases of sexist advertising precisely from the reports of this service on fines and punishments.

Source: State Production and Consumer Service

And this is the result of institutional improvement: the adoption of the law on advertising, complaints procedures and educational work with society and local performers. As a result, sexist advertising is no longer accepted as the norm. And receives the well-deserved punishment.

Deserved, but still disproportionate damage.

“Kovalska Beton” can afford to pay a fine of UAH 6,700 and laugh, saying it was the cheapest advertisement in our history, as they did.

But if the owners/teams were deprived of the opportunity to participate in state tenders for sexist advertising and sexist statements, then the unscrupulous manufacturers of concrete, car tires and film products would not be funny at all.

What to do with all this? At consultations and gender audits for NGOs and businesses, I always tell the management: act in advance. Show that you are not OK with sexism. Make comments to colleagues, monitor the atmosphere in the team, monitor your own speech, whether something slips by sometimes.

And most importantly, don’t give up. Participate in public discussions and directly say that you condemn the sexism of specific individuals. The formation of the institution of reputation is the work of not only women and not only feminists.

Look again at the violence pyramid at the beginning of this article. Eliminating his base is our joint task.

Tamara Zlobina, feminist philosopher, head of the expert resource “Gender in Details”

A column is a type of material that reflects exclusively the point of view of the author. It does not claim objectivity and comprehensive coverage of the topic in question. The point of view of the editors of “Economic Pravda” and “Ukrainian Pravda” may not coincide with the author’s point of view. The editors are not responsible for the accuracy and interpretation of the given information and perform exclusively the role of a carrier.