Why Philanthropy Must Invest in Narrative Power to End Gender Violence

The release of the Jeffrey Epstein files reignited public outrage and the aftermath demonstrated an age-old pattern: intense attention and collective outrage followed by a gradual return to silence—and eventual forgetting.

This pattern indicates that we are not failing to see gender-based violence but we are failing to understand it. When media centers the public’s attention on a particular scandal, without contextualization of the systems of power that make such violence possible, it conveys a myopic view of the problem while dismissing the root causes that produce it.

Gender-based violence and child sexual exploitation are often framed as the pathology of individual “monsters” rather than as the product of systemic failures. Media attention focuses on individual wrongdoing, while the systems that enable harm remain largely unexamined—allowing the cycle of harm to continue.

Narrative power is foundational to our collective understanding of a social issue. It shapes what we recognize as a problem, who we hold accountable, and what solutions we believe are possible. In this case, when violence is understood as individual deviance—rather than as a systemic problem—institutions evade scrutiny, prevention remains peripheral, and the broader conditions that enable harm remain intact. As a result, survivors are pushed to the margins, while the institutions and elite networks that perpetuate harm continue without sustained accountability.

Gender-based violence and child sexual exploitation are often framed as the pathology of individual “monsters” rather than as the product of systemic failures.

This narrative is not incidental. Powerful individuals and institutions routinely deploy enormous financial resources to suppress survivor testimony, fund coordinated smear campaigns and rehabilitate perpetrators’ reputations. Therefore, shifting these narratives is critical and this work is inseparable from the need for sustained investment in the movements, organizations, and systems capable of transforming the conditions that perpetuate violence. This is where philanthropy has a crucial—and largely unmet—responsibility in our collective work to enable prevention, response, and healing.

If philanthropy is serious about ending gender-based violence, it must treat narrative infrastructure as essential public infrastructure—investing in the storytellers, cultural workers, researchers, community leaders and movements actively challenging the narratives that make violence seem inevitable.

The Impact of Sexual Violence and the Lack of Funding to Address It 

Nearly one in three women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime; in the United States, that figure increases to more than 50 percent of women.

Native American and Alaska Native women experience sexual violence at rates higher than the national average. According to the National Institute of Justice, more than 56 percent have experienced sexual violence. Black women also face some of the highest rates of sexual violence among all demographics in the country. Indigenous and Black women and girls also experience disproportionately high rates of sexual violence in childhood and adolescence.

One in four Black girls under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse and Indigenous girls have the highest risk of sexual violence among all girls. Black girls face not only heightened exposure to violence, but also distinct and systemic patterns of racialized disbelief. Research on adultification bias shows that Black girls are perceived as older, less innocent, and less deserving of nurturing and protection than White girls of the same age. These racialized and gendered narratives make Black girls more likely to be blamed, criminalized, or ostracized—and less likely to be recognized as victims—when they experience or disclose violence. As the ACLU pointed out, “Black women, girls, and non-binary people are seldom seen as victims.”

Survivors of sexual violence also face significantly higher health risks including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain, and long-term physical health conditions.

These rates are alarming and have persisted for decades. Yet organizations focused on women and girls received just 2.04 percent of total charitable giving in the United States in 2023. Trans-led organizations are also severely under-resourced: a global survey of 449 trans organizations found that more than half operated on annual budgets below $20,000 and nearly one-third received no external foundation or government funding—even as 90 percent reported high levels of violence and harassment affecting their communities, leadership, or gathering spaces. When funding is further disaggregated by issue, community, geography, and organizational leadership, the amounts reaching those most affected become even smaller.

This profound mismatch is reflected in the chronic underfunding of organizations working to end sexual violence, including those addressing child sexual exploitation and those supporting survivors directly. Only a fraction of this funding reaches grassroots, feminist-led, and community-based organizations—particularly those led by women, girls, and gender-expansive people most affected by violence.

The Efforts That Distort Survivor Narratives

What we accept as “normal” violence is not accidental. The tolerance of rampant sexual abuse is shaped by distorted narratives about who has worth and power. And the machinery of narrative distortion is well-resourced—fueled by crisis PR firms, litigation strategies specifically designed to exhaust and discredit survivors, and longstanding media relationships cultivated over decades.

Harvey Weinstein’s team retained private intelligence firms to surveil and intimidate accusers. Epstein’s associates worked aggressively to undermine survivors’ credibility. It is no accident that the vast majority of Epstein survivors were girls experiencing homelessness, difficulty at home, or involvement in the child welfare system.

“Narrative change” may be treated as a buzzword in institutional philanthropy, but it sits at the very heart of lasting social change.

The result is an asymmetry not just of power, but of narrative: Those with resources can shape what the public believes, while survivors—particularly those who are young, poor, non-binary, immigrant, Black, or Brown—are left to fight for basic credibility.

This dynamic is supercharged by artificial intelligence and digital technology. AI-generated deepfake pornography, the vast majority of which depicts real, non-consenting women and girls, has exploded in recent years. Digital grooming, sextortion targeting minors, and the algorithmic amplification of content that normalizes sexual violence are the result of systems built without accountability to the people most harmed by them. As with other forms of gender-based violence, philanthropy and policy have been slow to treat technology-facilitated gendered violence as the structural issue it is.

This pattern extends far beyond any single case across social movements, political causes, and institutions. From labor organizing to religious communities to political formations, the bodies of girls, women, and gender-expansive people—particularly Black and Brown people—have too often been treated as expendable in service of a “larger” mission calling for “unity”. These appeals are themselves narrative strategies: they minimize the harm being done, isolate survivors, and defer accountability.

Change is overdue, and philanthropy cannot remain neutral in this asymmetry of power, narrative, and impact.

Narrative Infrastructure Is Essential to End Gender-Based Violence

“Narrative change” may be treated as a buzzword in institutional philanthropy, but it sits at the very heart of lasting social change. Narratives shape how societies make meaning, determining whose experiences are believed, whose dignity is centered, and whose harm is minimized or normalized. The narrative infrastructure that makes lasting change possible includes the people, organizations, relationships, platforms, research, archives, cultural practices, and distribution systems that allow movements to produce, sustain, and circulate meaning over time.

When dominant narratives cast doubt on survivors or protect perpetrators’ reputations, negative health consequences deepen: Stigma and trauma become compounded, and survivors face delays in treatment or are driven away from care altogether. Perpetrators rely on these narratives. They tell girls that no one will believe them and that they do not deserve protection. And too often, we prove them right. More than two-thirds of sexual assaults go unreported in the United States—this is not only a reflection of fear, but also an indicator of whether survivors expect to be believed, supported, or treated with dignity.

In a moment of rising authoritarianism, where attacks on gender equity and democratic norms are intensifying, this work is even more urgent. Gender-based violence is not only a symptom of inequality, but also a tool of control. If we want to move beyond cycles of scandal and forgetting, philanthropy must invest deeply both in responding to violence, and in the collective and narrative power required to prevent it. Only then can we begin to build systems and societies where safety, dignity, and freedom are not the exception but the norm, and where violence is no longer tolerated as inevitable.

In practical terms, this means multi-year, flexible funding for gender justice organizations; sustained support for storytelling and cultural strategy that centers survivors; and investment in research that challenges dominant assumptions and informs prevention and accountability. It also means recognizing movements not only as service providers or policy advocates, but also as cultural and political actors capable of reshaping public imagination. Resources must be shifted toward the leadership of those most proximate to harm, particularly girls who are most systematically excluded from power and who are already developing solutions—often without recognition or funding.

Scandal is not strategy. While scandal—when revealed through public media platforms—may briefly command the public’s attention, it alone does not create change. Philanthropy must invest in the movements and narrative infrastructure capable of turning moments of outrage into lasting shifts in power, accountability, safety, and freedom.