The wave of departures of female officials from the administration of US President Donald Trump in his second term raised questions about equal treatment between women and men, after 4 out of 8 female officials who held cabinet-level positions left within just 3 months, while a number of male officials remained in their positions despite being subjected to criticism and accusations that sparked widespread controversy.
According to the American newspaper "The New York Times", the latest episode of this process came with Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US ambassador to Greece, being forced to resign, after the publication of a press report stating that Guilfoyle asked one of Trump's donors to pay a credit card bill worth $100,000, prior to her confirmation session, and promised him in return to provide access to officials in the administration.
Guilfoyle denied the accusations, and Trump said he did not like what he read about her, although he confirmed that she was doing a good job. He also downplayed any substantive relationship with Guilfoyle, who is one of his staunchest defenders and was at one time engaged to his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
4 female officials leave their positions
The past three months have witnessed the departure of four prominent female officials: Attorney General Pam Bondi, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez Derimer, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The departures came for various reasons, while men took over the positions vacated by female officials.
Bondi's departure is due to criticism related to the management of Jeffrey Epstein's files, and Trump's failure to meet Trump's demands regarding the prosecution of his opponents, in addition to his dissatisfaction with her performance during Congressional sessions and her media appearances.
As for Noem, her dismissal came after she testified before Congress regarding government advertisements worth millions of dollars in which she appeared prominently. She said that Trump approved the spending, while the president denied this.
Gabbard announced her resignation to care for her sick husband, but the move came amid tension in her relationship with the White House, after she refused to confirm that Iran posed an imminent threat, which Trump relied on to justify the war against it. The president said she was “less strict” than him on the issue.
In contrast, Chavez-Dermer left her position amid accusations of dysfunction and a toxic work environment within her department, along with allegations of abuse of power, an inappropriate relationship with an employee, and the use of public funds for personal purposes.
Men who face charges and keep their positions
While female officials left their positions, male officials faced multiple criticisms and accusations. FBI Director Kash Patel faced questions about allegations of excessive alcohol consumption, allocating an armed intervention team to protect his girlfriend, and using a government plane for personal purposes, all of which he denied.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was also named in files published by the Department of Justice, as one of the visitors to the private island owned by Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was also criticized after revealing secret military plans in a conversation via a private messaging application, to which journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, was mistakenly added.
Trump punished his former national security adviser, Mike Waltz, for adding the journalist to the conversation, but appointed him as ambassador to the United Nations, a position he had promised Elise Stefanik, his Republican ally in Congress. Stefanik ended up moving away from the political scene before resigning from Congress.
Political criticism of the lack of equality in accounting
According to the New York Times report, this discrepancy sparked criticism from a number of Democrats, who considered that women face impeachment decisions more quickly than men when crises or accusations arise.
Democratic Representative from New York State, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, asked after the departure of Bondi and Noem, in response to a question from a journalist about who the president should fire next: “Has he run out of women?” “It seems that Trump’s ability is limited only to firing female ministers.”
Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who is often targeted by the president for ridicule, wrote in a social media post that Hegseth should be next on the list to depart. “I notice a pattern,” she commented. “He gets rid of incompetent women much more quickly than he gets rid of incompetent men.”
During a congressional session in April, Representative Madeleine Dean confronted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about what she described as a “double standard,” in light of his past relationship with Epstein. I asked him if the president was concerned about his relationship with Epstein, and Lutnick responded that he would not discuss his conversations with the president.
Dean added that Trump fired 3 ministers, all of them women, adding that if he really cared about holding those involved in helping Epstein accountable, he would have fired Lutnick as well.
For her part, Katherine den Tenpas, a non-resident researcher at the Brookings Institution who specializes in tracking diversity within presidential administrations since the era of Ronald Reagan, described what happened as unusual, saying: “I have never seen a situation in which all the first departures from the Cabinet were of one gender, that is, women.”
The White House defends Trump's choices
On the other hand, the White House defended Trump's appointments policy, stressing that the president chose members of his administration based on their ability to achieve results for the American people.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said that Trump “formed the greatest administration in history, choosing every member of his distinguished team based on only one criterion: his ability to deliver for the American people.”
She added: “Unlike Democrats obsessed with identity politics, the president evaluates individuals based on merit and qualifications, not on fixed, unchanging characteristics.”
Trump announced, during a celebration of “Women’s History Month” last year, that he was happy to have more women in his government than any previous Republican administration. But the number of women remaining in cabinet-level positions later decreased to four.
However, May Millman, director of the Independent Women's Law Center and a former White House official during the Trump administrations, rejected the departure of female officials as evidence of the marginalization of women. She noted the continuation of women in leadership positions, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Erica Schwartz, who was confirmed to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.
Melman said: “There is no isolation of conservative women in the Trump administration, but rather there is empowerment,” stressing that women are “a necessary member of the team because of their competence, not because of their gender.”
