What do former United States presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump have in common with Hyatt Hotels executive chairman Thomas Pritzker and celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz?

In addition to being white American men who have usurped a disproportionate share of the planet’s wealth, they were among the first names recently exposed in previously sealed court documents identifying associates of paedophile financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a US prison in 2019.

Assorted other members of the international elite were also named, including Britain’s Prince Andrew and the late Michael Jackson. More than 150 identities in total are expected to be released. Of course, the naming of names in itself does not constitute a criminal accusation and while media outlets have raced with orgasmic fervour to exploit the tabloidesque potential of the news story, we are not actually talking about any shocking revelations here.

After all, in a world defined by US-led patriarchal capitalism – in which women suffer a particular sort of objectification and commodification – it’s no surprise that those at the top of the hierarchy would fully endorse the whole brutal arrangement.

Take Donald Trump, for example, who has faced all manner of rape and sexual harassment allegations while also intermittently emitting lewd comments about his own daughter, among them: “If Ivanka weren’t my........

© Al Jazeera