Month: May 2025

(This contribution is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Feminists in Struggle. Stay tune for further discussion and FIST action on this important topic.)

The Trump Administration is destroying the governmental infrastructure that supports feminism–and that was brought into being by decades of feminist struggle.

Social change begins with protest in the streets and gradually moves its way through courts and legislatures to become law. The new laws are administered by government departments that disburse funding for programs mandated by these laws–which often are administered by a web of not-for-profit organizations. As the Trump Administration has moved to dismantle entire government departments, the programs these Departments oversee and that were approved by Congress as a result of much political labor by women and others, are now being defunded, with staff fired and told their work is “not in keeping with the priorities of this Administration”. The fruits of much struggle–including feminist struggle are disappearing.

As just one example: in February, 2025, non-profits that set up and administer shelters for victims of domestic violence, mandated in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) administered by the Office of Violence Against Women (part of the the Department of Justice/DOJ), found that the funds they annually rely on to keep going had been put “on hold” indefinitely. This was as a result of Diversity/Equity/Inclusion programs (DEI) being no longer allowed–with ‘special’ shelters for women being thus classified. VAWA programs are also being defunded because Trump is dismantling the entire DOJ and shrinking it down to being merely a tool of vengeance against his ‘enemies’. Thus, one of the fruits of feminism that started with Consciousness Raising groups of women in the 1960’s discussing violence from men in their lives and then starting a movement to stop it–has been stripped of any government funding and its functioning eliminated.

The Trump Administration has also announced its intention of dismantling the Department of Education (DOE), which is critical for women’s equality in the entire educational system. The DOE oversees equal sports facilities for males and females (under Title 9 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964–added in 1972); it investigates sexual harassment and assault in government funded (public) schools and has its own Office of Civil Rights (OCR) for this purpose; it works toward girls getting educated in STEM/digital literacy subjects and distributes Pell grants so that education is not limited by poverty (girls and women get 62% of these). There are currently over 1,000 complaints of sexual harassment in the pipeline that will now never be investigated because of the dismantling of the DOE (not to mention the girls now being harassed who have no place to turn). If Trump gets his way and all education is administered by the states, you can bet that most will not have these protections for women! And even in the ‘good’ states, it will all have to be fought for over again.

Trump’s attempts to make all aspects of Affirmative Action/DEI illegal, if successful (there are many court cases opposing his attempt) will have a great impact on women, who have largely benefited from these programs. This includes the end of ‘set asides’ in government contracts for historically disadvantaged people such as racial minorities and women; it will change the composition of students on campuses and will remove the legal ‘scaffolding’ women and people of color have used to get ahead in a world where, through generational disadvantage and plain old bias, they have been–and still are–at a disadvantage. At present, the word “women” has been flagged as making grant seekers ineligible for government grants who use this word in their proposals!

There is much more happening to dismantle feminism and all of its objectives in the present nascent fascist Trump Administration than I have space to describe here.

I believe that even as we fight the harms of gender ideology, we MUST keep in mind that everything else that feminists have fought for is under attack by the Trump Administration. Women may argue about which is the greater evil, but I believe that many gender critical women are ignoring or rationalizing Trump’s present and future actions against us, because he has supported some of our gender critical positions (there being only two sexes, etc.).

Given the larger ideology of the Christian Right (see Project 2025, the ideal of ‘biblical marriage’ and the ‘place of women’), the naked male supremacy of this administrations and the ongoing attacks on the infrastructure of feminism,  ‘statements of support’ from the Trump Administration are a ‘Trojan Horse’ and we must not be fooled

It would be extremely ironic if we finally got men out of women’s sport and out of DV shelters, only to find that there was no more women’s sport and no more DV Shelters due to their having been defunded by our new right wing ‘friends’.