The inexplicable removal of the first female director of the US Naval Academy last week is the latest in a number of top military women who were either released or in largely undetectable roles under the Trump administration.
The displacement From Vice ADM. Yvette Davids from her post as the first superintendent of the Academy in Annapolis, Md.
This trend, together with Defense Minister Pete Hegseth’s well-documented antipathy, towards women in fighting roles before becoming a Pentagon boss, could affect the women in the armed forces.
“It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that it will weaken our military strength by undermining the role of women who, I think, have become an intrinsic part of our military ability,” said Leon Panetta, former Minister of Defense of the Obama government.
Panetta, who announced in 2013 that all fighting roles would soon be open to women – a shift that finally came in 2015 – told the Hill that the removal of executives by the Trump government from the ranks would often have an impact on morality for female service members.
“Only to remove commanders from their positions without cause sends a clear signal that they are not merit. It is not a performance, it’s about being women. It is the only conclusion that you can come to,” he said.
Davids was not released directly, instead the deputy head of the naval operations, a leading position, but largely outside the public. However, the shift was only for 18 months after the academy was guided and not the typical three or four years of term of the school’s superintendent.
Nora Bensahel, a professor of civil military relationships at John’s Hopkins University, said that she was removed from the naval academy.
“This sends terrible news to the women who are currently serving in the US military, or young women and girls who think about joining the US military -that they are not welcome at the highest level,” Bensahel told The Hill.
The cleansing of the best female officers began the day when President Trump was inaugurated with the commander of the coast guard, Linda Lee Fagan, Fired only hours after his swearing -in. She has been in the role since June 2022 and was the first uniformed woman who led the military department.
At that time civil servants of the home protection department that monitors the coast guard Said reported The reasons for their release were problems with border security and an “excessive focus” on diversity, justice and inclusion that distracted “resources and attention from operational imperatives”.
The February fabric from ADM followed. Lisa Franchetti, the first female boss of the naval operations, and the Lieuten of General of the Air Force Jennifer Short, who worked as a high -ranking military assistant of the Minister of Defense. Both came without an explanation, although Hegseth called Franchetti, which contained numerous commands, a “dei-Hire” for a four decades.
And in April Vice ADM. Shoshana Chatfield, the only flag representative of the female flag in the NATO military committee, is reportedly released by her longstanding lawyer for the forces within the armed forces, including a presentation of the equality of women she had in 2015, to equality the equality of women that she thought in 2015.
All women have now been removed from the military’s top jobs without female four-star officers in lively service and no pending appointments for four or three star rolls.
When asked about the reason for the discharge of Franchetti, Short and Chatfield, Pentagon press spokesman Kingsley Wilson seemed to indicate that there was a problem with their overall performances, as no terrible mistakes, while all three were in their earlier roles.
“After the leadership of secretary Hegseth, the Ministry of Defense no longer makes any personnel decisions based on sex,” she said in a statement to the hill. “Advertising campaigns, new allocations and distances are decided on the basis of earnings and overall performance.”
While numerous male high -ranking military officers were also removed under the Trump administration -in particular the common chairman of the general CQ Brown staff -the few generals and admirals, the five “a disproportionately large number”, said Bensahel.
She added that the military with 18 percent of armed forces from women could not reach its recruitment figures without them.
Hegseth had made no secret of his views of female service members since last year when he allowed women to battle a good performance in his book “The War On Warriors”, but “women in infantry – women in the fight – have a different story”.
“Fathers urge us to take risks. Mothers have put the training bikes on our motorcycles. We need mothers. But not in the military, especially in combat units,” he wrote Spitz.
And just a week before he was appointed Trump’s selection for Defense Minister, Hegseth said that he “just said that we shouldn’t have any women in fighting roles” while he should have a podcast in the fighting roles.
“It didn’t make us more effective, didn’t make us fatal, the struggle made more complicated,” he said about the “”Shawn Ryan ShowPodcast, which was broadcast on November 7th. “We all served with women and they are great. But our institutions do not have to encourage this, where men traditionally – not traditionally about human history – are more capable in these positions.”
In order to win the confirmation as a Pentagon boss, Hegseth publicly mitigated his attitude in order to obtain voices from republican senators who expressed concerns about his earlier comments on female troops. Among them was Senator Joni Ernst (R-iowa), a retired lieutenant colonel in the army’s national guard, who commanded troops in Iraq and Kuwait.
In his nomination hearing, Hegseth said that he was not against women in fighter jobs, but seemed to indicate that standards for such roles were reduced to meet diversity quotas – an assertion that former defense officers say that there is no evidence of this.
“Yes, women will have access to soil control roles because the standards remain high,” said Hegseth too seriously, who later agreed to confirm in a close voice of 51-50.
Once in the building, Hegseth quickly got to work to reduce a program or effort with a touch of Dei – an obsession in Trump’s second term. On January 29, as considerations for military promotions to breed and sex with plans for a modern Pentagon-Task Force to promote “merit-based, color blind policies” in the armed forces. DEI efforts, Hegseth claims, damage recruitment and willingness.
In April he brought an ax to a Pentagon program to promote the participation of women in peace construction and conflict prevention, known as Women, Peace & Security (WPS). She called it a “United Nations program that was promoted by feminists and left -wing activists and claimed that“ troops hate it ”.
The program was partly by Kristi Noem, the then member of the house, who represents South Dakota, by the secretary of Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, the then Senator of Florida, with sponsorship from Trump, partly by the secretary of the home protection authority.
This spring, too, Hegseth applied to the efforts to check and revise combat and physical fitness standards – from some as a back door exertion to keep women away from the fighting roles.
But Panetta said to take the steps to undermine the role of women in the military, does not make much sense if Hegseth basically tries to maintain a mighty military, as he claimed.
“It was clear that he was against women in the military for a long time. This attitude now affects our military ability. I think the conclusion is that it weakens our strength,” said Panetta.
Like any other military warrior, women should be judged to do the job according to their ability. So it was significant that it was significant to give them this opportunity, “he added. “They had to fulfill the standard, they had to be able to do the job, that’s exactly what they could do.”
