Hegseth Ends Woke Feminist Peace and Security Initiative

By | May 8, 2025

WASHINGTON, DC, May 9 (C-Fam) U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, ended the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) involvement in Women, Peace & Security programs. He said the programs came into conflict with the Trump administration’s commitment to avoid diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

“This morning, I proudly ended the ‘Women, Peace & Security’ (WPS) program inside the Department of Defense,” Hegseth announced last week. “WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops — distracting from our core task: warfighting.”

Hegseth said he would only carry out aspects of the program that are the minimum required by statute and seek to end the program altogether in the next Congressional budget. He also added that “WPS is a United Nations program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops hate it.”

Women, Peace and Security policies began in the UN Security Council under the Clinton administration in 2000.  They were expanded under the Obama administration while Hillary Clinton was U.S. Secretary of State.

The programs were ostensibly created to protect women and girls in conflict situations and give women’s groups a seat in discussions of peace and security. In practice, they have become a tool for Western-funded feminist groups to have a permanent seat in all peacekeeping missions, conflict diplomacy, humanitarian operations, and access to aid in post conflict situations too.

In his first term, President Trump signed a bipartisan law mandating U.S. support for a targeted, national security focused approach to Women, Peace and Security initiatives. As feminist groups have become more radicalized through gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion, programs that were previously thought to be benign are openly at odds with his second term commitment to eradicate gender ideology and discrimination through DEI in all government policies. As one insider told the Friday Fax “Biden ruined everything.” The program became as Hegseth described on X, an avenue to advance Marxist feminism.

Aside from U.S. programs, the debate on Women, Peace and Security at the UN Security Council is at the heart of attempts to make abortion a part of humanitarian law and programs.  Germany, France and other progressive countries of Western Europe openly claim that abortion is a humanitarian right in Cecurity Council debates and UN Secretary General reports on Women, Peace, and Security issues, including conflict-related sexual violence, routinely promote abortion as a humanitarian right.

The concern over abortion promotion were already a big concern in the first Trump term when he threatened to veto two UN Security Council resolutions on Women, Peace, and Security, if they contained abortion-related language. European countries, including U.S. allies like Britain and France, responded by accusing the U.S. of violating humanitarian law by prohibiting funding for abortion through the Helms Amendment and the Mexico City Policy.

Feminists who worked with Clinton and Obama to put the Women, Peace, and Security initiatives in place attacked Hegseth for nixing their legacy policies. Obama’s Ambassador for Women’s Issues, and a close Hillary Clinton ally, Melanne Verveer, lambasted Hegseth’s decision from her perch at Georgetown University. She tried to pit Hegseth’s position against his current boss and even found kind words for President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Kristi Noem, for formerly supporting a federal Women, Peace, and Security law in 2017.

 

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