2025: Mandate for Leadership provides the agenda for President Trump’s presidency and the Republican leadership in Congress. Although the agenda claims to support equal rights for women, it actually appears to be an attempt to return women’s status to the 1950s.
The status of women during the 1950s and before was documented in The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.
During the 1950s, the role of American women was to be mothers and housewives. Women went to college to find a husband and often dropped out before graduation. The proportion of American women attending college dropped from 47% in 1920 to 35% in 1958. By the mid-1950s, 60% of women dropped out of college to marry, or because they were afraid too much education would be a marriage bar.
During the 1950s, the average marriage age of women in America dropped to 20. Fourteen million girls were engaged by age 17. American families had an average of 3.7 children.
Almost all articles in women’s media related to marriage, relationships and the family.
Many women sought psychological therapy because they found they were losing their individual identity and weren’t achieving self-actualization goals. Psychologists suggested they work on their marriages and not on themselves. Alcoholism was rampant among American housewives.
Women who achieved professional success were social outcasts. They didn’t fit the social norms of the time.
The 1960s and 1970s were a sea change for women in the U.S. Women joined together to fight for women’s rights. Contraceptives, especially the contraceptive Pill became widely available. The Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that women had the right to safe abortions. Women gaining control over their own bodies gave them the freedom to pursue professional and self-actualization goals.
With high inflation and slow wage growth, American families found both spouses had to work to keep up with the cost of living.
The age for a first marriage for a woman in 2024 was 28.6. The average number of children for American families was 1.9.
Women comprised 58% of all college students in 2020. In 1979, about 200,000 more women were enrolled in college than men. By 2021, the difference had grown to about 3.1 million more women than men in college. For 2022, the graduation rate was 67.9% for women and 61.3% for men for first-time, full-time degree-seeking students who entered a degree-granting four-year institution in the fall of 2016.
52% of J.D. recipients today are women, v. 30% in 1980. 51% of Doctor of Dental Surgery or Doctor of Dental Medicine recipients are women, v. 13% in 1980. 50% of MD recipients are women, v. 23% in 1980.
In 2024, women made up about 47.2% of all employed workers in the U.S. The labor force percentage rate for women was about 57.6%.
The strategy of Project 2025 was to identify initiatives in advance and identify people loyal to Donald Trump to replace those who were not loyal to him to adopt changes quickly. You’ll notice the early months of Trump’s second term felt like a blitzkrieg of change. This was largely accomplished with a rash of executive orders, bypassing Congress. The Republicans wanted to accomplish as many initiatives as possible before the mid-term elections, in case the Democrats got control of either the House of Representatives, the Senate, or both, possibly blocking further initiatives.
One of the purposes of 2025: Mandate for Leadership and Project 2025 is an attempt to impose Christian Fundamentalist religious values on Americans, returning women to a subservient role.
Contraception, such as the contraceptive pill would no longer be widely available. Safe abortions would be outlawed.
“Pro-Life” initiatives would be adopted. Health and Human Services would be renamed “Department of Life.”
Employer-provided health insurance would be prohibited from providing “anti-pro life” (contraception and abortion) benefits.
Marriage is promoted and alternative sexual lifestyles are condemned. “Men and women are biological realities that are crucial to the advancement of life sciences and medical care and that married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the man and woman who conceived them.” (Even if they are abusive parents.)
The Trump Administration has attacked Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives in the Federal government, in states and communities receiving federal funding, universities, and corporations.
The DOGE initiative has resulted in massive layoffs in the Federal workforce, disproportionately eliminating jobs for women and people of color.
Corporations that are requiring employees to return to the office after remote work during the COVID pandemic are disproportionately laying off women who can’t get child care and people of color.
A Baylor study found that 46% of women employees ordered to spend more time in the office negotiated taking on lower-level positions that allowed them to maintain their flexible working arrangements. Those moves involved women employees taking paycuts.
Since January 2025, more than 450,000 women have left the U.S. labor force. There was a net increase of men joining it.
In government agencies with a predominantly female workforce, such as the Social Security Administration (66% women), layoffs and cuts were widespread.
Even the right for married women to vote is under threat. The House of Representatives has passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. Under the SAVE Act, anyone registering to vote or changing their registration would have to appear in person at an election office with original or certified documents proving identity and citizen status, usually with a passport or a birth certificate. A state-issued drivers license wouldn’t be adequate on its own. The passport or record of naturalization and the birth certificate would have to have a matching name. Since most married women change their last name to their husband’s at marriage, processing their voter registration would be complicated. Only half of U.S. citizens currently have a passport.
The bill includes a provision ordering states to allow registrants to provide “additional documentation” to prove their citizenship when discrepancies arise, but it does not specify what types of documents states could accept.
Making this change could prevent millions of women from voting until they can document their identities. It could also result in changing the custom of adopting a partner’s name at marriage to avoid the hassle of documenting your identity to vote.
Adopting the SAVE Act also would create an inconvenience for all voters whenever they change their address. They would have to visit a voter registration office to make the change.
The SAVE Act hasn’t been passed in the Senate. Maybe some “bugs” can be worked out when and if it is adopted.
Most of the initiatives in Project 2025 have not become laws yet, and lawsuits are in process for some, like defending diversity, equity and inclusion. The Supreme Court has been inclined to disregard precedent rulings and support President Trump and Project 2025, even when their initiatives appear on their face to be unconstitutional.
What can women do to defend their rights?
- Vote in the upcoming 2026 midterm election for candidates (preferably women) who support women’s rights, and do not support President Trump and Project 2025. (President Trump won the last election because fewer Democrats voted in 2016, probably because they were unhappy with how President Biden handled Israel’s war on Gaza.) (If you are in a relationship where your partner is dictating how you vote, consider asserting yourself or getting out of it. Look for local support resources online.)
- Join protests against the Trump Administration. www.nokings.org
- Call or write representatives in Congress to express your opposition to Project 2025 initiatives and the SAVE Act. https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
- Attend local Town Hall meetings of representatives in Congress to express your opposition to Project 2025 and the SAVE Act.
- Donate to the American Civil Liberties Union to support litigation defending women’s rights. https://www.aclu.org/
- Join with other women in the National Organization for Women to fight for women’s rights. https://now.org/
- Start your own business or seek employment of women-led businesses or organizations. More women are educated than men, and they have the skills or can get the skills they need to run successful businesses. Women-led business often do better than business led by men. https://www.stash.com/learn/why-companies-led-by-women-may-do-better/
- Re-examine the tradition of paternalism and consider adopting the philosophy of partnership of the sexes. https://breakingdownpatriarchy.com/
Do you have more ideas? Please send me your suggestions.