Misogyny Is 2025’s Biggest Trend
We’re not even a month into 2025, and already the theme seems to be misogyny.
It seems like every day this year there’s another headline about women being talked down to, discriminated against, or losing the rights we’ve had for decades. From Mark Zuckerberg telling Joe Rogan that companies need more “masculine energy” to Donald Trump’s executive orders stripping diversity and inclusion programs and concerning movements by state lawmakers to push the boundaries of women’s rights, it’s almost too much to process.
But we are processing—and documenting. Below, 10 moments that exemplified this troubling trend just within the first few weeks of 2025, each of which has been unleashed thanks to the rise of the manosphere and the election of Trump 2.0. But this time around, wallowing is not an option. We should stay engaged but protect our peace, donate to causes we care about, make a difference by showing up for those in our own lives, and call out this behavior when we see it.
Here are the 10 examples, in order of appearance.
Jan. 10: Mark Zuckerberg tells Joe Rogan companies need more “masculine energy.”
The founder of Meta apparently took the election of Trump as a cue to morph into a manosphere sycophant. Zuck, who has three daughters if you were wondering, kicked off 2025 with a host of “anti-woke” initiatives, including radically upending the company’s fact-checking systems, rolling back diversity programs, and removing tampons, which had been provided for trans and nonbinary employees, from men’s bathrooms.
But the cherry on top of Zuckerberg’s hard-right pivot is his embrace of full-on misogyny, which he spouted off on what else but Joe Rogan’s podcast. According to the billionaire, companies are struggling now because they have become “culturally neutered.” His solution? More “masculine energy.”
“I think having a culture that, like, celebrates aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive,” he said.
The implication is men are strong and women are weak. Masculine energy equals aggression, which equals strength, which equals…corporate success? Even if that were true, we don’t think corporate America is suffering from a lack of men. Women only lead 8% of large companies; in fact, until 2023, there were more male CEOs named John than women CEOs, period.
Jan. 14: Oklahoma lawmaker proposes offering tax breaks for patriarchal “covenant marriages.”
A conservative senator is taking the right-wing war on divorce to the next level, introducing legislation that would offer couples a tax break for entering into a legal form of marriage that is much more difficult to dissolve.
SB 225, authored by Sen. Dusty Deevers, is ostensibly meant to “strengthen the institution of marriage and to promote the religious freedom of those who wish to enter into a marital union under religious terms.” By entering into a so-called “covenant marriage,” a couple could only legally divorce if one spouse could prove abandonment of at least one year, adultery, or abuse of themselves or their child. If a couple agrees to this type of marriage, the bill proposes they receive a $2,500 tax break if filing together or $1,250 if filing separately.
Essentially, covenant marriage would not allow no-fault divorce, which allows people to split up without proving any wrongdoing. No-fault divorce, which began to be enacted in states in the 1960s, was a huge win for women’s rights, as it allowed for women to leave unhappy or controlling situations more easily. While couples in Oklahoma would have the choice whether or not to enter this sort of marriage, critics and advocates say that this type of partnership could be ripe for abuse.
“Any barrier to divorce is a really big challenge for survivors,” Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline, told Vox in a 2024 article about no-fault divorce. “What it really ends up doing is prolonging their forced entanglement with an abusive partner.”
Jan. 15: Pete Hegseth’s “denigrating” comments on women in combat resurface during his confirmation hearing.
Pete Hegseth, former Fox and Friends Weekend cohost, is currently attempting to be confirmed as Trump’s secretary of defense. Choosing Hegseth has been a controversial decision for many reasons, but perhaps most horrifying are his long list of allegations of misconduct toward women. Not only was Hegseth accused of rape in 2017, but his brother’s ex-wife, Danielle Hegseth, said in a sworn affidavit this week that he had been abusive toward his second wife, Samantha Hegseth.
Hegseth’s views on women were also under scrutiny during his confirmation hearings, where several women senators held the former talking head to account for his previous “denigrating” comments toward women in the military. These include: telling Ben Shapiro on a podcast women shouldn’t serve in combat and are “life-givers not life-takers,” and writing in his 2025 book The War on Warriors that moms shouldn’t serve.
“Dads push us to take risks,” he wrote. “Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.”
When confronted about these comments, Hegseth demurred, saying he would tell a woman service member who felt concerned about his fitness to lead the military that he “would be honored to have the opportunity to serve alongside you.”
Confirmation Hearing Held For Secretary Of Defense Nominee Pete Hegseth
Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesJan. 18: Outgoing president Biden gives toothless endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Maybe this isn’t a blatant example of true misogyny at work, but it was rather infuriating nonetheless.
In a rather strange move, one of outgoing President Joe Biden’s final acts as president was to throw his support behind the Equal Rights Amendment. The amendment, which was passed by Congress in the 1970s, would guarantee men and women equal rights under the law.
Great, right? Not so fast. In order to become the 28th Amendment to the Constitution, 38 of the 50 states needed to ratify it. This didn’t happen until 2020, nearly 50 years after it was first proposed and meaning it missed deadlines set by Congress to ratify it all those years ago. And some of the states who already ratified it back then, like Nebraska and Idaho, say they want to rescind their support now, complicating an already very complicated matter.
On the last Friday of his presidency, Biden decided to take a stand, saying “the Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land.” However, he didn’t do anything but state that this was his belief, and he didn’t put any legislative and executive powers behind it.
This rather toothless endorsement in the last days of his presidency, therefore, is unlikely to make any impact. In fact, the National Archives said the same day that the legal discrepancies around ratification had not changed, according to the AP.
Such an important milestone for women being treated in this manner left advocates cold.
“I wish it was done sooner because it’s so important,” Christian F. Nunes, leader of the National Organization for Women, told the AP. “The fact that it’s getting done now is more important than the fact that it took so long, but we can’t continue to delay women’s protections and equal rights in this country.”
January 20: Government website providing reproductive rights information goes offline.
Trump’s Inauguration Day was a true smorgasbord of misogynistic actions. Here’s the first. On the same day the 45th president became our 47th president, the federal website established to help Americans access abortion care and reproductive information stopped working.
The website, which according to CBS News was established by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2022, was intended to help bridge the gap created by the overturning of Roe v. Wade that same year.
“While Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion remains legal in many states, and other reproductive health-care services remain protected by law,” it read.
Thus far, the Trump administration hasn’t commented on the website’s status.
Jan. 20: Trump’s executive order establishing two biological sexes also codifies fetal personhood.
On the first day of his new administration, Trump also signed a devastatingly cruel executive action that targeted trans Americans. Under the guise of “protecting women,” the order states that there are “two sexes, male and female.” The order states that these sexes “mean a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.”
While this action is horrifying enough for what it implies for trans rights, journalist Jessica Valenti noted that the way the order is worded also has a chilling implication. By referring to an embryo as a “person” at “conception,” Trump is [using rhetoric](https://newrepublic.com/post/190506/donald-trump-fetal-personhood-executive-order){: target="_blank"} that aligns with the concept of “fetal personhood,” language used in extreme anti-abortion legislation that gives fetuses the same rights as any other person under the law.
There’s also the fact that every embryo at the moment of conception is technically a female.
Jan 20: British politician Nigel Farage poses with Conor McGregor at a victory rally for Trump.
This portrait of misogyny is an Inauguration Day example that doesn’t involve Trump directly. Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK’s right-wing populist Reform UK party, traveled to DC for the big day and took the time to pose with MMA fighter Conor McGregor, who lost a civil case in November in Ireland where a woman accused him of a 2018 rape.
“We are so back,” Farage wrote in the caption.
Farage’s willingness to pose with an alleged rapist immediately drew swift backlash in the UK, with Carla Denyer, the leader of the country’s Green Party, saying she was “disgusted” but “not particularly surprised.”
“Farage has previously praised the misogynist influencer and alleged child trafficker Andrew Tate, and has called for a debate on rolling back abortion rights,” she told The Independent.
“We can’t be complacent about the hard-won rights and freedoms we have, and politicians here in the UK have a responsibility to speak out against those who would seek to take them away.”
Jan. 21: Trump fires head of the US Coast Guard, who was the first woman to lead a branch of the military.
Adm. Linda L. Fagan broke a significant barrier in June 2022 when she was appointed the head of the US Coast Guard, the first woman to lead any military branch.
Her tenure lasted until the day after Trump’s inauguration, when she was abruptly fired.
According to the New York Times, all units of the Coast Guard were informed that Fagan had been terminated the morning after Trump was sworn in. In the message, acting secretary of the Homeland Security Department Benjamine C. Huffman gave no reason as to why Fagan had been let go, saying she “served a long and illustrious career.”
However, the department told the Times Fagan was being relieved “because of leadership deficiencies, operational failures and inability to advance the strategic objectives of the U.S. Coast Guard.” One of those “deficiencies?” Failure to secure the southern border with Mexico, the statement said. The department also accused Fagan of having an “excessive focus” on diversity initiatives and said she had failed to address issues of sexual harassment.
While it’s hard to know for sure exactly what happened here, the fact that Fagan, the first and only woman to hold this position, was let go just a day after Trump’s inauguration, and the overtly political reasoning cited, does give pause as to how much of her firing was politically motivated.
US-POLITICS-BIDEN-MILITARY-USCG
SAUL LOEB/Getty ImagesJan. 22: Trump’s executive orders roll back decades of initiatives to help protect and support women working in the federal government, along with other marginalized groups.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order in 1965, which forbade discriminating against marginalized groups—including women—in government hiring. Two days after being sworn in as president, Trump signed one that essentially rolled back the decades-old decree.
The move on Wednesday was part of a larger anti-DEI push by the new Trump administration, which claims it wants to return the US to a meritocracy. On his first day in office, Trump signed another order that ended diversity, equity, and inclusion programs meant to ensure women, people of color, and other marginalized groups would not face discrimination within the federal government.
“There’s this clear effort to hinder, if not erode, the political and economic power of people of color and women,” Basil Smikle Jr., a political strategist, told Reuters of the move. “What it does is opens up the door for more cronyism.”
Jan. 22: Trump calls Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde “nasty” after she asked him to “have mercy” on those whose administration frightens him.
Budde, the first woman to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, hosted the president and his family for the inaugural prayer breakfast on Tuesday. But in her sermon, she took the unusual step of asking the president to tone down his political rhetoric against LGBT people and immigrants.
“I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” she said, according to the New York Times. “There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”
She continued: “The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”
On Wednesday, Trump responded to her message by attacking Budde with one of his familiar insults for women who displease him. He called her “nasty” as well as “not compelling or smart.”
“Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one,” he wrote on Truth Social, according to CBS News. “She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”
In an interview with Time, Budde said she hopes her intent is received despite the attacks.
“I hope that a message calling for dignity, respecting dignity, honesty, humility, and kindness is resonating with people,” she said.
Originally Appeared on Glamour