Donald Trump is bragging that his government shutdown is targeting what he calls “Democrat programs.” But what does that really mean for everyday people? Well, for women, regardless of their political beliefs, it’s bad news.
The programs that Trump and his Republican allies are targeting are the same ones that employ a large number of women, provide essential support to women and families, and protect women’s rights and safety.
Coincidence? We think not. This administration is working hard to undermine women’s socioeconomic power, including by implementing the wildly sexist Project 2025 agenda at record speed. This shutdown is just another opportunity to wage even more attacks on women.
Here are five ways the Trump administration is using the shutdown to hurt women:
- Trump is blocking federal funding for programs that help survivors.
The Trump administration shuttered the Justice Department’s grant-making offices, which provide critical funding for organizations that support survivors of domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault. In previous shutdowns, this office remained open because of its lifesaving mission. Closing it now is a purely political decision, fully aligned with Project 2025’s agenda to dismantle federal support for survivors.
- Funding for federal child care and early education programs is drying up — and low-income moms are paying the price.
Head Start, the nation’s only federal early education program and a key target for elimination under Project 2025, is already facing devastating funding shortfalls as a result of the shutdown. These funding gaps are putting more than 65,000 children and families at risk of losing safe, reliable child care, and may also impact Head Start’s predominantly female workforce.
- Federal layoffs and furloughs are hitting women workers the hardest.
The Trump administration is using the shutdown as an excuse to lay off thousands more federal workers, and the majority of federal workers targeted by Trump’s sweeping staff cuts seem to be women. For example: 65% of the workforce at the Department of Education is women. This Department, which Project 2025 is also seeking to eliminate, furloughed nine in ten of its workers and laid off 466 staffers, all while decimating programs that support special education, civil rights enforcement, schools in high poverty areas, and more. Attacks on federal workers also hit Black women disproportionately hard, as they account for more than 12% of the federal workforce, despite making up just over 6% of the total workforce.
- Trump has fired nearly all staff from the program that makes birth control more accessible.
The Trump administration is using their shutdown as an excuse to gut the federal office that has provided birth control and family planning services to millions of low-income and vulnerable women for more than 50 years. This move is squarely in line with Project 2025’s goal of undermining access to birth control. Seeing a pattern yet?
- The Republican-caused government shutdown is threatening critical food assistance for women, babies, and families.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — known as WIC — provides essential food, nutrition education, and breastfeeding support to pregnant and postpartum people and their young children. Right now, the administration is relying on a legally questionable stopgap to keep WIC funding flowing to states and local clinics for a few weeks, but that funding could run out at any moment — putting approximately 7 million women, children, and babies at risk of losing the support they depend on.
Disruption in WIC assistance would exacerbate hunger for families, especially as states warn that there may not be adequate funding to issue Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in November.
Women and children are suffering at the hands of this Trump- and Republican-caused shutdown. Instead of using this failure of government as a shameless excuse to implement even more of Project 2025’s anti-woman agenda, Republicans should come to the table and negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government. Women deserve better — and voters are watching.