This week a lot of people got really mad at the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team after some of them laughed at a sexist joke our president made about the U.S. women’s team. My Instagram feed was flooded with people expressing their outrage and disappointment. While you might argue the reaction feels outsized—it was just a dumb joke from a dirty old man—I’d argue it’s indicative of something bigger happening right now in our society.
It’s a scary time to be a woman in the U.S. It’s pretty clear that the party in power simply hates us. Just look at how this administration has been systematically going after high-ranking women—Trump’s so-called “adversaries”—including New York State Attorney General Letitia James, Fed Chair Lisa Cook, former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Dr. Erika McEntarfer, National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox and general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, as well as Equal Employment Opportunity Commission officials Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows, just to name a few.
Meanwhile, last year, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired a number of top female military officers, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first female chief of naval operations, and Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, who served as the senior military assistant to the secretary of defense. (He fired top Black officers as well.) And among the rank-and-file government employees who were fired by the administration, Black women were disproportionately impacted.
Republican women aren’t safe from men’s ire either. And finally some of them are denouncing the misogynistic bullshit of their conservative peers. Sure, it’s easy to think, “No duh” when Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elise Stefanik both decry their party’s sexist ways, but at least their eyes are finally opened, and they put down the Kool-Aid. Our president might let women have a seat at the table, but his track record suggests that it’s more than likely he’ll hang them out to dry when it comes time to blame someone for the latest crisis. (See: Pam Bondi taking the heat for the mishandling of the Epstein files, or Tulsi Gabbard getting blamed for the raid on the Georgia election center. BTW, why are we not talking about that story more?)
There are dozens of big and small ways conservative leaders are trying to undermine women every day. They’ve made the concept of DEI practically verboten. They’ve made massive cuts to research focused on women’s health. They’ve stripped us of our reproductive rights, and they’re threatening to disenfranchise us at the polls. As someone who read The Handmaid’s Tale at a formative age, I can say my biggest fear is that I wake up one day and discover I cannot access my money. In our dystopic reality, it doesn’t feel so far-fetched.
When the elected officials at the highest levels of our government treat women so badly, we shouldn’t be surprised that our whole society is impacted by the trickle down. The president makes a sexist joke, or calls a female reporter “piggy,” and that jerk in marketing feels empowered to do the same. Part of me just wants to roll my eyes and dismiss them as stupid little boys wearing ill-fitting men’s suits. The other piece of me is terrified. (Also, the boys I know may be prone to share too many poop and fart jokes, but they are much better behaved than many of our elected officials.)
Obviously, the administration doesn’t just have it out for women. Racism is rampant right now. Transgender Americans are being targeted. And there’s a full-blown war raging against immigrants. In order for these men to achieve their (ridiculous) vision for the future of our nation—one where only white men are in charge and everyone else is subservient—they must first strip away all our rights and leave us powerless.
Still, I do not feel hopeless. I feel angry and annoyed. And I am confident that women will persevere. Men have always underestimated us and written us off as the weaker sex. But we know the truth. I can’t say it better than the luminous Kristin Scott Thomas did in Fleabag with her fantastic menopause monologue.
“Women are born with pain built in. It’s our physical destiny—period pains, sore boobs, childbirth. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives. Men don’t. They have to seek it out. They invent all these gods and demons so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own. And then they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other, and when there aren’t any wars they can play rugby. We have it all going on in here, inside.”
So what do we do at this moment when misogyny is raging? We do what we’ve always done. We keep going. We call out the bad jokes. We run for office. We speak out against injustices we see, and we care for those in need. We call on our male allies for their support. And we remind anyone who will listen that we are the ones who really make the world go round. As The Highwomen sing, we’re “running the world while we’re cleaning up the kitchen.”
But if you’re one of those male allies, could you pick up a sponge? We shouldn’t have to do this alone. - Lindsey
The war against women in the news
- The National Women’s Law Center put together a thorough report detailing how Project 2025, the Republican Party’s signature policy agenda, will impact women, families, and gender justice. In December, The 19th* published a story outlining how much of Project 2025 the Republicans accomplished last year. (Spoiler alert: a lot.)
- Last week, the EEOC announced it was suing a New Hampshire-based Coca-Cola bottler for allegedly discriminating against male employees when they hosted a women-only career development event. NBC News reports that “the EEOC is demanding that the company compensate male employees for their ‘emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, and other nonpecuniary losses.’”
- On the trickle-down effect, New York Times columnist Jessica Grose writes, “What chills me is a sincere fear that they—and all the other girls who have never known politics without Trump—will not be treated as fully human by the men and boys in their lives.”
- Last year, political scientists Michael Tesler, John Sides, and Colette Marcellin argued that the 2024 presidential election was more than just a victory for Trump. “It felt like a victory for a traditional view of gender roles.”
- Trump’s war on women doesn’t just affect the states. The London-based Financial Times reports: “A U.S.-led backlash against diversity measures has contributed to some multinational companies quietly softening language around diversity, including speaking broadly about inclusion rather than enacting specific measures to boost the representation of women or ethnic minorities.”
- “Women will never be taken seriously until leadership decides to take us seriously, and I’m no longer holding my breath,” writes Representative Nancy Mace (Rep.-S.C.) in a recent New York Times op-ed decrying the ineffectuality of the U.S. House of Representatives.
- “What does it mean to be a conservative woman in 2025?” Elaine Godfrey asks in The Atlantic. It seems complicated!
- At Vox, Constance Grady argues it’s not just conservatives who hate women; liberal men show plenty of disdain, too.
- Need a palate cleanser? My friend Heather posted this reel with the note, “An hour ago, I hated men, and then I watched this.” I mean…
What else we’re talking about
- Bloomberg Businessweek put out a very fun and interesting edition about the economic force that is Gen Alpha. As the mom of a kid born squarely within this generation, I find it all fascinating. I especially love Casey Lewis’s story featuring snapshots of Gen Alpha kids posing with their favorite things. -Lindsey
- All the New Yorkers out shoveling snow—and getting paid $30 an hour to do so—warmed my heart during this week’s blizzard. - Alicia
- Friend of The Purse Caitlin Moscatello did a deep, deep dive into the rise of middle-aged women receiving ADHD diagnoses and shared her own experience for The Cut. It’s a fascinating read! -Lindsey
On our radar
- New feature alert! When we asked for your dining-out budgets, we received feedback that readers are interested in seeing other families’ weekly meal plans and grocery budgets. So we’re kicking off the search! Submit your meal plan here. Because of the work involved (we’ll have follow-up questions and ask to see your literal grocery receipts as well as detailed meal plans), we are offering $300 for selected submissions.
- Lindsey is forcing me to make TikToks, so like this one pretty please? -Alicia
- Just a reminder that this month, we’re donating 10% of all new annual subscriptions to the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota.
Quote of the week
Comment of the week
“Stuff like this makes me glad I’m old, but I’m worried about young people. Even if AI doesn’t take over as soon as its proponents claim it will, it’s going to affect all of us; it’s shocking we aren’t better prepared as a society.”
-Rosana Francescato on Alicia’s essay, “Is the white-collar job apocalypse upon us?” This one has a hoppin’ comment section—add your thoughts!
Graph of the week
Traditional personal finance wisdom says that if you want to get a substantive raise, you should change jobs—for years, there was a pay premium for doing so. But now, that premium has all but vanished, according to data from ADP: The difference in pay gains between job-changers and job-stayers was just 1.9% last month, compared to a high of 8.4% in April 2022.
What else we published on The Purse this week
Lindsey Stanberry
Alicia Adamczyk
Alicia Adamczyk
Lindsey Stanberry
Best money we spent this week
- I grabbed drinks with AJ Ayers to (belatedly) celebrate her turning in her book manuscript. Nothing better than a Tuesday night talking about money with another cool woman in finance. (~$30). -Lindsey
- Once again I spent all my money on food. I’m on a health kick, so I splurged on flaxseed, hemp seeds, oats, shredded coconut, and so on to make energy bites, because snacking on things like chips is my weakness. (~$30) -Alicia
