Uncertainty and Insecurity: What Donald Trump’s Administration Means for Women

In the run up to the US election, I remember saying to people that I didn’t know which way it was going to swing, but my shock and disappointment on the morning of the 6th of November must mean that somewhere inside I was sure (or at least hopeful) that the Democrats would take it. A lot of women felt the same way; my mostly female social circle, including my housemate who spent ten years of her childhood in Texas, were in disbelief at the “stupidity” of Americans for voting Trump into office again, but were we women the stupid ones for thinking our male counterparts would have our backs and not support a now convicted sex offender? 

The political analysts of the Guardian Politics Weekly UK podcast think that American men viewed Kamala Harris as an embodiment of the “woke HR department”, telling them what they can and can’t say, and appreciated the “strong-man” persona of Donald Trump. The “machismo” of Trump’s unapologetic character found support among hispanic and black men, who voted in greater numbers for Trump in 2024 than in 2020. When this is married to Trump’s argument of America’s economic distress and the close association of Harris with the Biden administration, the result of the November election becomes unsurprising. 

While it may seem obvious now, on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, it doesn’t make his victory any less distressing for women in the US and across the world. For women at home, his attacks on abortion access, his anti-trans rhetoric, and his history of sexual assault makes his second administration anxiety-inducing. On the day of the election, on X, formerly Twitter, former President Obama was reposting women’s photos captioned “voted BLUE for a better future for myself […] but especially for the women & girls”, “I voted for the future of these sweet girls”. It was poignantly clear how important this election was for American women. But, since the USA established itself as the world’s policeman after World War Two, the policies of the US affects women across the world, especially women in lower income countries and in the Middle East. 

Starting at home, the re-election of Trump sends a message to all survivors of sexual abuse and assault: the man will go unpunished. Accusations of sexual assault are always queried, with the most prominent response being: ‘it will ruin the man’s life’. Yet, the initial election of Trump in 2016 and his re-election in 2024 show that this argument is without foundation. A post on X quoting the announcement of Trump as TIME’s Person of the Year 2024, which received 434,000 likes, stated, “don’t ever tell me rape allegations can ruin a man’s life”. His thirty-year history of sexual abuses of groping, forcibly kissing, and attempted raping of women, his association with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and his claims that “as a star, you can do anything”, “[when he meets beautiful women] I feel able to grab them by the pussy […] I just start kissing them. I don’t even wait”, and “it’s hard for flat-chested women to be a ten” shows that he has no respect for women, so why would he have our interests at heart in office? What is even more sinister is that it tells men that sexual attacks on women will not be punished, but will in fact be rewarded.

Trump was re-elected in November as a convicted sex offender, after he was found guilty in 2023 of sexually assaulting E. Jean Carrol in a department store dressing room. Already, according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), out of every 1,000 sexual assault cases, 975 perpetrators will walk free, but the success of Trump’s entrepreneurial and political career sends the message home to women that their testimonies of assault don’t matter.

Abortion access is another shadow hanging over women. Trump has continually taken credit for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in 2022, since the three justices he appointed to the Supreme Court in his first administration voted to overturn it. This has left the issue to abortion up to the states – 17 states have banned abortion entirely or severely restricted it, including Florida, Nevada, and South Dakota. The attorney generals of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri have filed suits to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone. This curtailing of access not only leaves women without autonomy over their bodies and lives, but increases the risk of illness and death from secret abortions or dangerous births. Despite his applauding of the disappearance of a constitutional right to abortion and his signs of willingness to sign a national abortion ban, he has seemed unhappy with the notion of too restricting policies and would like to leave abortion as a state issue. These inconsistencies are worse than a solid abortion policy, pro or not. Women are left in the dark over what is going to happen to their rights.

Moving further afield to Palestine, where American policies are directly impacting women, and the incoming Trump presidency means things can only get worse in the Middle East. Trump has shown Israel great support because of two reasons: his core base of support of right-wing, evangelical Christians strongly back the state of Israel and Trump divides the world into two camps: winners and losers. Benjamin Netanyahu is clearly the winner for Trump, which is why, as former BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen claims, “Trump was willing to give him everything he asked for”.

In 2018, Trump stated that “the plain reality is that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem”, Trump gave encouragement to Israel to annex occupied territory in the West Bank, recognised Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights in Syria, and attempted to buy off the Palestinians with promises of $50 billion investment. In accordance with his world view, Trump has treated the Palestinian ‘losers’ with acute cruelty – blaming Palestinians for the massacre of the Great March for Return in 2018, stopping American aid and healthcare, and even closing the Palestinian mission in Washington D.C.. Throughout the renewed conflict since October 2023, Israel’s biggest ally has been the US, who has been supplying them with funds, arms, and UN vetoes of ceasefires, and I doubt this will be different after the changeover of President. During his campaign, Trump presented himself as a champion for Israel, denouncing pro-Palestinian demonstrations, vowing to set the pro-Palestinian solidarity campaign “back 25 or 30 years”, and proposing extending his Muslim ban to Gazan refugees. The arrival of Trump into the White House will mean continued plight for Palestinian women, who experience the genocide in a uniquely difficult way.

According to the UN, nearly 70% of those killed in Gaza are women and children, overcrowded shelters provide no privacy for women and girls, limited access to food and water has more severe effects for pregnant, lactating, and young women, and menstrual hygiene is severely compromised – after only a month into Israel’s siege, 690,000 women and girls did not have access to menstrual products, leaving them having to resort to makeshift alternatives. Since the Gazan health system is no longer functioning and Israel is blocking access to aid (Israel has blocked 27 out of 31 UN missions and impeded the other 4), pregnant women in Gaza are forced to give birth without sanitation, pain relief, or surgical intervention.

One of Trump’s most notorious policies is his denial of climate change as a hoax. During his first administration, he pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, a pledge to prevent global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C and to limit carbon emissions to net zero between 2050 and 2100. In his second term, he plans to re-exit the Paris Agreement, a classically stubborn Trump manoeuvre, and withdraw the US from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and remove the US from COP negotiations, which are key cogs in the climate action machine.

You may be asking, ‘why does Trump’s climate policies matter to women?’. Interestingly, the World Economic Forum has found that climate change impacts women more than men, and since the US is the country most responsible for cumulative emissions, the path Trump chooses to take on climate change action impacts women across the world. UN Environment has found that 80% of the people displaced by floods, wildfires, and storms caused by climate change are women and girls, who face heightened risks of poverty, violence, and unintended pregnancies as they migrate. Women’s health is compromised by rising temperatures and extreme heat, affecting the menopausal system, causing premature birth and low birth weight, and causing poorer maternal health and pregnancy complications, with increases in stillbirths and the spread of vector-borne illnesses such as Zika virus. UN Women states that climate change amplifies gender inequalities – for example, in many low and lower-middle income countries, women bear a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water, and fuel, making agriculture the most important sector for women. During periods of drought and erratic rainfall, women must work harder to secure income and resources, and girls are pressured to leave school to help their mothers with this increased burden.

Women were overlooked in the November election, as men, and some women too, were dazzled by the controversial, risk-taking former President, meaning that the future looks stark for the female race for the next four years, from abortion access to climate change impacts and just being respected as equal people, rather than sex objects. The only silver lining I can offer is we will never have to worry about Trump being elected again.

Words by Rosie Nowosielski

Cover Image Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr