The Epstein files offer a glimpse into how men speak about women when they believe no one is watching. They show how contemptuously these men treat women, or think they can treat them. Some men, it must immediately be said. In this specific case: men with power, status, and influence across all areas of society.

Among them are scientists. The scholars whose names first emerged even form a quartet spanning nearly the full breadth of academia. Mathematical biologist Martin Nowak represents biology and the life sciences; theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss stands for the abstract, hard sciences; Noam Chomsky for the humanities; and economist and former Harvard president Larry Summers for economics. All four are affiliated with prestigious institutions such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale, and through non-fiction books, opinion pieces, and television appearances, they have all become scientific superstars.

That, of course, is precisely what made them attractive to Epstein. They brought him their scientific prestige, social standing, and name recognition. With a touch of their intellectual aura, Epstein polished his reputation. You might call it ‘science washing.’

So universally excluded

Still, I think I was not the only one—and certainly not the only woman—who also felt a certain weariness at such revelations. Because although men’s contempt for women rarely presents itself as openly as in the Epstein files, it is hardly surprising. The patriarchal structures and ideas that foster such contempt have shaped the scientific enterprise from the very beginning.

The French natural philosopher Émilie du Châtelet already wrote about this in 1735. She herself had received an exceptionally strong private education for her time and was one of the very few women active in the natural sciences. Yet even Du Châtelet continually felt “the full weight of prejudice that so universally excludes us”—women—“from the sciences.”

In doing so, she identified what is now called “stereotype threat”: the (undermining) fear that your work will fall short and thereby confirm the negative stereotype about the group you belong to. It is the counterpart of what is sometimes called the silent standpoint: the unspoken assumption that women are less suited to a scientific career than men. And research shows that this assumption is still very much alive among many male scientists.

It illustrates how persistent patriarchal prejudices and stereotypes are. But Du Châtelet’s life shows something else as well: that women’s participation in academia can always be questioned again, even when progress once seemed to have been made. She was fortunate to encounter a few men confident enough to value a woman’s work. As a result, in 1746 she was even appointed to the Academy of Sciences in Bologna—just like, around the same time, physicist Laura Bassi and mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who were both also installed as professors at the University of Bologna. Yet less than half a century later, the situation had already changed dramatically.

During the French Revolution, the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were proclaimed. And it soon became clear that ‘Man’ referred only to men. Objections from feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft had no effect. Her plea to grant women broad access to education was ignored, and Napoleon once again barred women from universities. It was the opposite of what Du Châtelet had argued in her essay: equal rights for men and women, especially where those rights concerned ‘the mind.’

How ironic, then, that more than two hundred years later, the former Secretary General of the Council of Europe—an institution tasked with protecting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law—appeared in the Epstein files. It once again makes clear that old patriarchal ideas have never truly been shaken off. Not even in science.

Boys’ physics

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, specialized laboratories that gave a major boost to the natural sciences became “new male preserves” where “women were admitted only with special permission,” as historian of science Margaret Rossiter observed. And by the mid-twentieth century, the term Knabenphysik, or boys’ physics, captured the idea that science was driven forward by young men with innate talent and a rebellious spirit, who formed networks while simultaneously competing as individuals.

Nuances introduced more frequently by historians of science and social scientists, especially from the late twentieth century onward, were only partially taken up. They pointed to the broad collaboration that allows science to flourish; to the social, economic, and political conditions that play a role; and to male networks in which members exchange knowledge or nominate one another for prizes. Yet in non-fiction books, television programs, and in many people’s minds, the idea persisted that scientific knowledge springs from the minds of solitary—male—great thinkers standing on the shoulders of those who came before them.

The scientists in the Epstein files presented themselves as such great minds. And the documents show how this went hand in hand with outright misogyny. Take Larry Summers, who joked with Epstein that women have lower IQs than men. During his tenure as president of Harvard between 2001 and 2006, the proportion of women receiving tenured positions at the prestigious university dropped from 36 to 13 percent.

Meanwhile, Epstein gave millions to scientists such as Nowak, his foundations helped Krauss organize conferences on one of the Virgin Islands, he connected other—predominantly male—scientists with sponsors and publishers, or offered them a taste of his extravagant jet-set world. In that world, girls and young women were abused, yet such scientists—and their institutions—preferred to look away, even after Epstein’s conviction. It is corrupt and can only occur when the system broadly fails to recognize women, something consistently demonstrated by recent studies on stereotyping, prejudice, and double standards.

Voiced ever more loudly

It raises many questions. About how science organizes and values authority, credibility, and the production of knowledge. About what scientific integrity entails. And about how science in a democracy seeks to share knowledge. Because how can you engage in a dialogue with society about a future that will be largely shaped by innovation, if at the same time you operate from a silent standpoint that assumes at least half of society counts for less?

Such questions are all the more pressing in the Trump era, in which the silent standpoint is being voiced ever more loudly. In which debates around “woke” turn gender into an ideology rather than a subject open to inquiry. In which the Trump administration halts research into gender or specifically into women. And in which algorithms and AI revive old stereotypes and push women’s voices to the margins. It may be wishful thinking, but it would be encouraging if the Epstein files at least prompted European scientists and policymakers to truly break this toxic cycle of progress and backlash—and yes, especially the men among them.

Margriet van der Heijden is a full professor of Science Education in Physics at TU/e. She recently published two books with Oxford and Cambridge University Press on gender and the history of the natural sciences.

This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.