Like many on the left, I have always looked up to public intellectual Noam Chomsky’s analyses and critiques of contemporary politics, from Palestine to U.S. imperialism. I also believed him when he said he was a supporter of human rights. But when I read his emails to Jeffrey Epstein, I felt shocked and betrayed. Are women and girls not human? The two being able to maintain any type of positive relationship proves that left-wing spaces need to be safer for women, and that Chomsky is the tip of a very big iceberg. 

I have worked in left-wing spaces for nearly a decade, including for Jeremy Corbyn’s national press team when he was leader of the UK Labour Party. In these organizations, I have pushed hard for violence against women to be a policy priority, and have been met with lukewarm responses from my seniors. Moreover, much of my social life is within leftist spaces, and I have experienced misogyny in my interpersonal relationships with males, friends, romantic partners, and colleagues. 

 Chomsky’s correspondence with Epstein made it clear that he was aware of Epstein’s crimes and chose to maintain contact anyway.

In late February, 2019, 11 years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution, Chomsky wrote to Epstein about “the horrible way you are being treated in the press and public.”

“The best way to proceed is to ignore it. That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder,” Chomsky wrote.

Chomsky’s disregard of the devastating impact of sexual violence indicates how deeply the patriarchy is embedded across the political spectrum. But it’s particularly disturbing to me when men who preach leftist ideology  — and often, explicitly advocate for human and women’s rights — hold these patriarchal viewpoints.

Misogyny on the left has always been a problem both institutionally and in interpersonal relationships. In 2013, a scandal in the UK’s Socialist Workers Party (SWP) unfolded, in which it was reported that multiple members of the SWP had been accused of sexual assault and rape. To add to the hypocrisy, the party  actually protected those accused and covered up the accusations.

If leftwing organisations do not protect women from violence, then they are not safe for women to be in. Despite significant discourse saying that socialism must be incorporated into women’s rights, the sentiments are not being reflected in everyday life. 

I have met lots of women from my time working in left-wing spaces —  in the UK Labour Party, trade unions, and some nongovernmental organizations. The stories are ubiquitous. Every time I heard a different account  — some mistreatments, others far more serious — I was struck by the irony of it all. None of this behaviour suggested that the men in question saw women as equals. 

As it stands, left-wing rhetoric and policy in the UK, the U.S., and most of the Western world extend as far as the language of second-wave feminism, with small parts of fourth-wave feminism when it comes to transgender rights. Violence against women is not  — that language seems to have been co-opted by liberals and ‘white feminists.’ But gender-based violence is an intersectional issue, and the consequences disproportionately affect women from lower socio-economic backgrounds, many of whom cannot afford to get the support they need to recover. 

The general statistics about violence against women in the U.S. are pretty horrific. One in five women have experienced completed of attempted rape in their lifetime. In the United States, three women a day are killed by a man. 

The words and behaviour of men like Chomsky are part of a disturbing pattern of disregard for women’s safety, well-being, and lives, meant to  dismiss the experiences of women in an insidious way. His words suggest that rape and sexual assault aren’t that bad, that women lie about it regularly, feeding into the trope that women are hysterical for no reason. In continuing to closely associate with Epstein without condoning his actions, Chomsky’s message to women who have survived gender-based violence, like myself, is clear: women’s experiences don’t matter to him.

Until left-wing politicians centre the issue of violence against women and girls, most men in the leftist movement will not start treating women better in their personal lives, and organisations will not take women’s experiences seriously.