Accomplice, partner or mastermind: how much credit should we give her? Credit: Mathieu Polak/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images
In a world where history is dominated — and often written — by men, feminism has long cautioned us to look to the shadows to see the real heroes, lurking there unseen. Out of the spotlight, shunted to the sidelines, trapped beneath the glass ceiling, forever playing a supporting role to a man who takes all the credit for doing half (or less!) of the work. Think of all the women there would be monuments to, if only the men had given them their due.
At its best, this is a noble impulse: to recognise how women, so often denied direct access to the levers of power, have had to find other ways to wield it. To give credit to the mothers, sisters, wives, and girlfriends of great men who had to content themselves with pulling strings behind the scenes rather than wielding swords on the front lines. But at worst, this feminist narrative has a dark underbelly: if behind every great man is an even greater woman, then who will you find standing in the shadow of a man who did terrible things?
Two years ago, the internet was on fire with debate about the disgraced financier and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting justice for his crimes. The investigation into his death is ongoing, but meanwhile the investigation into his misdeeds has found a new villain. Epstein isn’t just gone; he’s quickly being forgotten, relegated to a supporting role in the scandal that bears his name. Our focus has turned to Ghislaine Maxwell, whose status has grown so great in the wake of Epstein’s death that she has all but eclipsed the man without whose bad acts there would never have been a story at all.
Much has been made of Maxwell’s relationship with Epstein, including her possible complicity in his crimes. The charges against her include enticement of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls, with several women alleging that Maxwell recruited them to work with Epstein in full knowledge that he would abuse and assault them. (She has denied all the allegations.) But it’s Maxwell herself who is increasingly the object of fascination and derision.
In 2019, when Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking, Maxwell was covered as more of a curiosity than an accomplice — let alone a puppeteer pulling his strings. Even Vicky Ward, who has said her reporting on the sex abuse scandal was removed from her Vanity Fair profile of Epstein — allegedly because he put pressure on then editor Graydon Carter — did not seem comparably suspicious of Maxwell’s character at the time. “Full disclosure: I like her,” Ward wrote. “Most people in New York do. It’s almost impossible not to.”
Needless to say, there are no such disclosures to be found in coverage of the case today. Instead, Maxwell’s guilt is treated as a foregone conclusion in most public conversation about the case, to the point where her recent fretting over the possibility of a tainted jury pool doesn’t really seem so far-fetched. The word most commonly used to describe her in the press is “monster” — as in “Ten Monsters of 2020”, and, “Donald Trump Just Wishes This Monster Well”, and “Ghislaine Maxwell Called ‘the Real Monster’ as New Legal Hurdles Emerge”.
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