The administration wants military women to know their place

The following summarizes reporting by Tom Nichols for The Atlantic Daily, July 22, 2025. It also provides additinionl commentatry adn tries to connect additional dots.

The Trump administration's approach to military leadership has become increasingly clear over recent months. Under the direction of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, there appears to be a deliberate effort to remove women from the highest ranks of America's armed forces, rolling back decades of progress in military gender integration.

The pattern is clear

The most recent example came last month. Vice Admiral Yvette Davids was abruptly removed from her position as superintendent of the Naval Academy. Davids made history in 2024 as the first woman to lead the prestigious Annapolis institution, but her tenure lasted only 18 months—well short of the typical three-to-five-year term. She was replaced by Lieutenant General Michael Borgschulte, a Marine, marking another first. A Marine had never led the Naval Academy.

This removal follows a series of high-profile firings that have \ eliminated women from the most senior positions. The administration dismissed the following female leaders:

• Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first female chief of naval operations
• Admiral Linda Fagan, the first female Coast Guard commandant
• Lieutenant General Jennifer Short, a senior military assistant to the secretary of defense
• Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, the first female president of the Naval War College and later the U.S. military representative to NATO

The ideology behind the purge

Secretary Hegseth has been remarkably transparent about his views on women in military leadership. In his 2024 book The War on Warriors, he explicitly criticized what he called "social engineering" by the political left, arguing against the integration of women into combat roles and senior positions. Hegseth wrote that "the Left needs every woman to be as successful as every man, so they've redefined success in a counterproductive way."

In his mind, they should be perhaps cleaning the officers' quarters.

This perspective reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of merit-based advancement. Hegseth appears to view the historic achievements of female military officers not as the result of exceptional service and capability, but as products of affirmative action or lowered standards. His characterization suggests that women who reached the military's highest ranks did so through some form of quota system rather than through the same rigorous evaluation process that governs all military promotions.

Every accusation is an admission Pete.

A vision of military masculinity

Perhaps most telling is Hegseth's own description of his preferred military culture. He advocates for a return to what he sees as traditional military values, writing that the armed forces should focus on "forging young men (mostly) with skills, discipline, pride, and a brotherhood." His exclusion of women centers on the belief that "Men like women and are distracted by women. They also want to impress, and protect, women."

This paternalistic worldview fundamentally undermines the professionalism and capabilities of America's military personnel. It suggests that highly trained service members—individuals prepared to face the world's most dangerous threats—cannot be trusted to maintain focus and professionalism when serving alongside female colleagues.

The systematic removal of women from military leadership sends a chilling message throughout the armed forces. As civil-military relations scholar Nora Bensahel from Johns Hopkins University notes, this approach sends a clear signal to servicewomen and potential recruits that women are not welcome in the military's upper echelons, despite the fact that the military depends on female recruitment to meet its personnel needs.

This regression to a more homogeneous, male-dominated leadership structure represents a dramatic departure from the military's evolution over the past several decades. The armed forces had gradually recognized that effective leadership comes from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and that merit—not gender or, for that matter, race—should determine advancement.

So Pete is keeping the white bit of that silent, though it is literally tattooed all over him.

Looking backward, not forward

The current administration's approach to military personnel appears driven by nostalgia for an earlier era—if not blatent misogyny. It' certainly not focused strategic thinking about 21st-century defense needs. The Pentagon has prioritized ideological purity over demonstrated competence. Thus, it risks losing some of its most capable leaders and has discouraged the next generation of female service members.

An administration that emphasizes "lethality" and military effectiveness is actively undermining both by removing proven leaders based on gender rather than performance. Oh the irony. This is not only a step backward for gender equality, but potentially a weakening of America's military readiness in an increasingly complex global security environment.

Non in cactus futuri