I'm still trying to figure out what to say about Chapter 9 of Project 2025. Everytime I try to write something, I get lost in my own emotions and fizzle into frustration. So I'll share the quotes and throw some words out to see what sticks.
I am a 41 year old woman who:
- was adopted and raised by her grandparents who were born in the 1930s; and
- who was a church-going, God-fearing teenager in the height of "Purity Culture" in the 1990s.
I was made painfully aware of what females were and what femininity was "supposed to be". I knew the rules of the game, how to follow them, and how to score the points.
What I didn't know was I was playing Whose Line Is It Anyway, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.
I am just now learning how to define myself and to be satisfied with that definition. That I can feel as feminine in a dress and heels as I can in a flannel shirt and work boots and I am a woman in both scenarios because that is who I am. That despite the circumstances that kept me from becoming a mother, I am still a contributing member to society and have a stake in the future of my country.
It is not "the Left" who has misused the definition of woman. It is "the Right" who has created a limited definition of what a woman "should be" in their mind and imposed that definition upon anyone with the label of "female". And then, when we fall short of your expectations, you punish us for it.
No one gets to define who you are. You get one life. One. Find your own damn definition because who you are matters. Society is more than women who beget children. Society is all people and viewpoints and emotion and care and compassion and concern and friendship and joy and sorrow and culture and tolerance and education and empathy.
Project 2025, Chapter 9, Pages 258-59
Refocusing Gender Equality on Women, Children, and Families. Instead of protecting women's and children's unalienable human rights and propelling their ability to thrive in society, past Democrat Administrations have nearly erased what females are and what femininity is through "gender" policies and practices. For instance, these Administrations have diluted USAID’s focus on assisting vulnerable women, children, and families around the globe by adding protections for and ideological advocacy on behalf of progressive special-interest groups. USAID now aggressively promotes abortion on demand under the guise of “sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” “gender equality,” and “women’s empowerment” and advocates for those who claim minority status or vulnerability.
Families are the basic unit of and foundation for a thriving society. Without women, there are no children, and society cannot continue. As evidenced by the confirmation testimony of now-Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the progressive Left has so misused and altered the definition of what a “woman” is that one of our U.S. Supreme Court Justices was unable to delineate clearly the fundamental biological and sexual traits that define the group of which she is a part. USAID cannot advocate for and protect women when they have been erased globally along with the values and traditional structures that have supported them.
The next conservative Administration should rename the USAID Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) as the USAID Office of Women, Children, and Families; refocus and realign resources that currently support programs in GEWE to the Office of Women, Children, and Families; redesignate the Senior Gender Coordinator as an unapologetically pro-life politically appointed Senior Coordinator of the Office of Women, Children, and Families; and eliminate the “more than 180 gender advisors and points of contact…embedded in Missions and Operating Units throughout the Agency.”
In addition, the next conservative Administration should rescind President Biden’s 2022 Gender Policy and refocus it on Women, Children, and Families and revise the agency’s regulation on “Integrating Gender Equality and Female Empowerment in USAID’s Program Cycle.”10 It should remove all references, examples, definitions, photos, and language on USAID websites, in agency publications and policies, and in all agency contracts and grants that include the following terms: “gender,” “gender equality,” “gender equity,” “gender diverse individuals,” “gender aware,” “gender sensitive,” etc. It should also remove references to “abortion,” “reproductive health,” and “sexual and reproductive rights” and controversial sexual education materials.
In the past, the word “gender” was a polite alternative to the word “sex” or term “biological sex.” The Left has commandeered the term “gender,” which used to mean either “male” or “female,” to include a spectrum of others who are seeking to alter biological and societal sexual norms. The promotion of gender radicalism is anathema to the traditional norms of many societies where USAID works, causes resentment by tying lifesaving assistance to rejecting the aid recipient’s own firmly held fundamental values regarding sexuality, and produces unnecessary consternation and confusion among and even outright bias against men.
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