For Epstein’s Victims, Language Matters

The way we use language matters.

A number of years ago, at our university’s faculty retreat, an engineering professor was sharing with a roomful of colleagues the challenges he was facing, getting the girls in his class to engage with the material. The men had no problem answering questions, but the girls were mostly silent, he said, and he wondered what he could do to get the girls more invested in their learning.

Another faculty member raised her hand, then offered him this advice: “It might help if you stopped calling them girls.” The engineering professor was flustered and defensive, unable to see how that small change had anything to do with his struggle. But I wanted to applaud, to raise my fist in solidarity; and now, almost two decades later, I think of my peer’s brave comment each time I see her, even though she’s been long retired now.

Every year, I have a similar conversation with journalism students, and with the college newspaper staff I advise. When referring to people over age 18, we call them women and men; under 18, they are girls and boys. Those distinctions matter, I tell them, especially because language shapes our perception of the world, and when students write about girls’ dorms and men’s dorms, for example, we are implicitly diminishing the stature of women on our campus, and elevating the stature of men.

Sometimes, students seem to get it. Sometimes, they must think I’m a raving feminist, willing to die on a petty linguistic molehill.

But the way we use language matters.

I was reminded of this notion again last week, in light of the significant discourse about the Epstein Files, and the ways some politicians have tried to reshape public understanding of what was a horrific crime—and an equally horrific coverup. What already-available court documents, victim testimonies, and emails tell us is that billionaire Jeffrey Epstein and countless wealthy, powerful people sexually assaulted and trafficked girls; and that most having escaped accountability for the violence they perpetuated on vulnerable children.

In some reporting, though, journalists have written about Epstein et al.’s victims as “underage women,” a rhetorical slight that seems to suggest the children being trafficked and assaulted were older, perhaps less innocent, than they actually were. Underage women are girls, after all, and describing them as women is another kind of cover up, as it makes the crimes seem less heinous than they are.

Former Fox and Today Show host Megyn Kelly, now on Sirius XM, attempted her own apologia for Epstein, arguing that while his victims were girls, they weren’t little girls, and so somehow this makes his predation less vile. She said, “But he [Epstein] liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby . . . There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know.”

Kelly has been relentlessly dragged on social media for this comment, including by actresses like Melissa Gilbert, but she’s definitely not alone in believing that Epstein’s victims are somehow complicit in the crimes committed against them. The girls have been described as whores and prostitutes, as if those types of women are somehow more deserving or culpable for the crimes committed against them. (Indeed, in 2008, Epstein accepted a plea deal for one count of prostitution, rather than face trial for raping and trafficking a multitudes of girls.)

Language matters.

This kind of word choices effectively diminishes the crimes committed by powerful, wealthy men (and a few women, like Ghislaine Maxwell), just one more way the victims have been disempowered. Hearing victims’ statements; or watching Tuesday’s press conference on the U.S. Capitol steps with victims and a few stalwart congresspeople; or reading Virginia Giuffre’s extraordinary memoir, Nobody’s Girl, released last month, it’s clear that the trafficked girls have been silenced for years, decades even.

The world’s wealthy and powerful, including the U.S. president, have played a significant role in assuring that their witness against the evils of men will never be heard. Perhaps that’s what is so stunning to me about the Epstein case: That so many people were complicit in the girls’ abuse. That so many people knew about the abuse, but did nothing. That so many people are willing to let girls, now women, suffer in silence, rather than hold accountable the powerful people who did so much irrevocable harm.

Including our government’s leaders. Especially our government’s leaders.

In another excellent memoir, Rachael Denhollander describes the abuse hundreds of girls experienced from Larry Nassar, the team physician for U.S. Gymnastics. Nassar was finally deemed guilty of his many crimes in 2017, but for a long while, people looked the other way as he abused girls, including Denhollander herself. Her book asks “What is a girl worth?” The Nassar case, and the Epstein case, suggest that a girl is not worth much, not when so many powerful people can get away with abusing them indiscriminately.

Language Matters.

And the language they use shows their disregard for the Imago Dei, reflected in each one of the victims.

In a time when the world’s most powerful men are caught abusing the most powerless, and when others use performative Christianity as a cover for this abuse, it might seem silly to quibble about whether someone should be called a girl or a woman. But language matters, as it helps shape our perception about the world, and our place in it, and the place of the most vulnerable—the very ones Jesus calls us to protect.

This weekend, President Trump told a reporter on Air Force One that she needed to be quiet. He called her “piggy,” stepping toward her in a stance that can only be described as aggressive. Some pundits have already justified this moment as a joke or a second of diminished inhibition in a stressed, tired leader.

More likely, the language used by our president reflected what President Trump sees of the world, where girls are women, and women are girls, and all of them are pigs, easily overpowered because they are, in his eyes, less that human.

And still, I have hope that one day we will be able to answer Denhollander’s question about what a girl is worth differently. Justice for Epstein’s victims, and holding powerful men accountable for their vile behavior, might be one place to start.