Trump’s War on Women

On the campaign trail in 2024, Donald Trump said, “Whether the women like it or not, I’m going to protect them.” Apparently his vow was more a curse than a promise. Since taking office, Trump and his administration have been steadily undermining American women, their economic freedom, health and security.

Trump and his male allies seem dedicated to furthering sexist goals of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint that’s set on keeping women at home. There are daily examples of destruction of government programs critical to women.

Early in his second term, Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman member of the National Labor Relations Board, along with NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abuzzo. Next came firing EEOC councilmembers Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows as well as general counsel Karla Gilbride, charged with investigating alleged sexist and racist discrimination.

At the same time Trump was busy nominating appointees who are a threat to women’s health. Chief among them is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who is following Trump’s lead in investigating medication used in medical abortions and promoting unfounded mistrust in vaccines. Also nominated was Dr. David Weldon, a former GOP congressman and anti-abortion extremist, named to head the Center for Disease Control.

Trump eliminated $10 billion in childcare funding across five states, not as a fiscal responsibility but as economic warfare directed against women and children. He cancelled funds for vital women’s health research and threatened efforts to reduce Black maternal deaths and improve maternal health care. There also is uncertainty about implementation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, potentially putting 2.8 million pregnant workers at risk each year.

The president has been fueling a toxic masculinity and penalizing women who don’t offer him adequate praise and alliance. He’s infamous for his ugly insults to women officials                                       using words like “evil,” “sick,” “crazy” and “low IQ.” When speaking to women journalists, he resorts to slurs like “you are an obnoxious person and a terrible reporter” to ABC’s Rachel Scott and “Quiet, quiet piggy” to White House correspondent Kate Rogers.

His chauvinistic approach has set an example for others in his administration; notorious among them is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Nowhere is the war on women more evident than in Hegseth’s military. Women and minorities are being purged, their promotions denied, combat capabilities impugned, achievements scrubbed. Admiral Lisa Franchetti, respected chief of naval operations, was one of the early casualties.

The most dramatic military firings have come at the top. There are now no four-star female officers on active duty in any branch and no female candidates likely for four or three-star appointments. In his book “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth maintained that so-called DEI hires have made the military “weak and effeminate.” One wonders: Were the senior women officers fired for being not good enough or for being too good and threating the restoration of a masculinist culture?

Among the empowered male politicians is House Speaker Johnson who attributed school shootings to an “immoral society” wrought by “radical feminism.”  GOP women have complained that congressional leaders no longer take them seriously. When resigning Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “They wanted us to go along with whatever they were doing and just stand there and clap.”

If the naked misogyny throughout government ranks weren’t enough, Trump, who once had bragged about the number of women in his cabinet (“most ever of a Republican president”), is now intent on firing them. Among his targets: Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer. All were replaced by men. 

The single gender exodus has insiders wondering why no affected men, some of them ripe for firing. There is FBI Director Kash Patel who has confronted questions about his conduct, over alleged excessive drinking, assigning a SWAT team to protect his girlfriend and using a government plane for his personal use. Also seemingly exempt are Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who paid visits to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who discussed secret war plans at a private meeting that included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.

Most recently, Trump unleashed his firing skills on Kimberley Guilfoyle, ambassador to Greece. Questioned about Guilfoyle’s dismissal, the president said, “She wasn’t a member of my family. She – I guess – dated my son a long time ago.” In truth, Guilfoyle’s lengthy engagement to Donald Trump Jr. lasted until September 2024.

Trump also fired or at least facilitated departure of Katie Zakaria as his new blond press secretary after just five days – something Mother Jones called “less than half a scaramucci” in reference to Anthony Scaramucci’s 11-day tenure as press secretary during Trump’s first term.

While Guilfoyle and Zakaria are the most recent women to exit, there now are rumors that Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, may be next. The president, as he often does, is asking around for others’ advice to support an initiative he’s planning to take. Observers think Wiles will be fired as a scapegoat for things that have gone sideways in the midterm elections.

There apparently is no end to the double standard of firing. But at least the lopsided pattern hasn’t gone unnoticed. It has prompted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to ask, “Is he finally out of women?”