By Rob Okun
“You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women. If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you’re dead. That was a big mistake you made. You didn’t come out guns blazing and just challenge them. You showed weakness.”
—Donald Trump, quoted in Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
As Donald Trump tries to dodge accountability again—this time for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein—let’s not forget what’s really going on: powerful men shielding one another from the consequences of their predatory, often criminal, behavior.
What’s missing from every story that focuses on Trump’s connection to Epstein are the victims themselves: the hundreds (thousands?) of teenage girls and young women trafficked and exploited. When the spotlight is on the perpetrators rather than the survivors, we distort justice and uphold a system where power, not justice, is the narrative and truth be damned.
For those of us working to redefine manhood—to replace domination with compassion, entitlement with empathy—this may be a watershed moment. Misogyny has been central to Trump’s political brand from the start. He kicked off his 2016 campaign invoking rape to stoke fear about immigrants, and the misogyny only escalated from there. Who can forget his bragging, snickering on an Access Hollywood tape, “grab ‘em by the…” And there’s the two dozen women who have credibly accused him of sexual misconduct—including rape.
Tempting as it is to chalk up Trump’s behavior as another example of his long pattern of lying and bullying, this moment demands more. Trump is the poster boy for early 20th-century masculinity. His worldview insists male dominance is destiny, feminism is a threat, LGBTQ+ people are demonized, and “real men” take what they want.
Speaking about Epstein in New York Magazine in 2002, he said, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy… He likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” This from a man who bragged about entering dressing rooms of underage girls during teen beauty pageants.
To seriously tackle the overarching issue of gender-based violence, we have to move beyond the will-they-won’t-they release the sealed Epstein files. Yes, transparency matters. But if we don’t connect the dots between Trump’s version of masculinity and the broader pool of violence and exploitation he swims in, we miss the point. The root problem isn’t Epstein’s black book—it’s patriarchal masculinity.
Which brings us to Project 2025, the authoritarian policy roadmap authored by Trump-aligned conservatives at the Heritage Foundation. Beyond its chilling threats to democracy and reproductive rights—among so many other horrors—Project 2025 seeks to entrench “traditional family values”—code for restoring rigid gender roles and male dominance. A patriarchal power grab laughingly masquerading as morality.
The response must be bold and sustained. We need a #MeTooFollowThrough—a full-throated movement of men confronting patriarchal masculinity and standing in solidarity with survivors.
Yes, women have long led the way. Still do. And yes, men have a responsibility to act—not as saviors, but as allies, people ready to unlearn a lifetime of harmful conditioning.
As the late sociologist Allan G. Johnson wrote in his groundbreaking book, The Gender Knot: “We are deep inside an oppressive gender legacy… The more we pull at the knot, the tighter it gets.”
Still, some men are pulling—with purpose. Organizations like MenEngage, A Call to Men, Equimundo, Next Gen Men, Men4Choice, Fathering Together, and NOMAS have been breaking the silence, offering egalitarian models of masculinity. They teach emotional literacy in schools. Promote consent culture. Fight for reproductive justice. Mentor boys and men to dismantle patriarchy from the inside out.
But we need more than a few good programs. We need a cultural reckoning—a mass movement of men ready to confront the very systems that advantaged them. And that includes demanding that any talk of a pardon for Epstein’s partner-in-crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, be unequivocally rejected. Full stop.
The future of manhood won’t be found among younger men struggling to find purpose; they are allies-in-waiting who need our support and guidance. Despite being led astray by bad actors cruising the manosphere, happily, they can see through Epstein’s grotesque privilege and Trump’s cowardly denials. Manhood’s future lies in men standing shoulder to shoulder with women, naming the harm they face, taking responsibility, and building a culture rooted in care and equity.
As South African Bishop Desmond Tutu put it: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” The stakes are too high to be neutral now.
If this isn’t the moment for men to speak up, what is? If not now, when?
Rob Okun (robokun50@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a former daily newspaper reporter and editor. He is editor emeritus of Voice Male, a magazine that for three decades has been chronicling the antisexist men’s movement.
