Freyd’s work also led her to another con­cept with incred­ible value and use­ful­ness today, DARVO. DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. It’s a pat­tern Freyd iden­ti­fied in how per­pe­tra­tors of vio­lence respond when con­fronted. However, insti­tu­tions also use this strategy, and they often have more power and resources, allowing them to be more effec­tive than indi­vid­uals.
Today, DARVO is a weapon wielded against the public by people and insti­tu­tions meant to rep­re­sent and pro­tect us as cit­i­zens. The han­dling of the Epstein files, for instance, fol­lows the classic abuser’s play­book iden­ti­fied by Freyd: the obstruc­tion, and then slow-walk, of selec­tively redacted release of infor­ma­tion (Deny); the con­stant dis­cred­iting and threat­ening of sur­vivors (Attack); the pro­tec­tion of pow­erful men’s iden­ti­ties, rep­u­ta­tions, and pri­vacy (Reverse Victim and Offender). Asymmetrical power and the gov­ern­ment’s use of “trans­parency” have exposed vic­tims’ iden­ti­ties while masking those of the pow­erful. At var­ious points, their names. Faces. Bodies. Addresses. Families.
This is what a system pro­tecting itself does. DARVO, in the Epstein case, has con­sis­tently made vic­tims the face of the crimes and ensured that the net­work that enabled Epstein remains an abstract force.
For many women, espe­cially women of color who have never had the luxury of trusting these sys­tems in the first place, the Epstein sit­u­a­tion is con­firming our world­view. The dis­tress we are feeling isn’t borne of sur­prise or even outrage, but deep grief and rage. It’s the exhausting weight of living in a world that con­tinues to tell women that we don’t matter, not even as chil­dren. What the Epstein case is doing, how­ever, is showing many more people that the men most likely to talk about pro­tecting “their” girls and women are the ones most likely to feel enti­tled to do to girls and women what­ever they please.