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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drew fierce backlash Tuesday after attacking the Pentagon’s “Women, Peace & Security” (WPS) program as a “woke” initiative, despite the fact that the program was created by bipartisan legislation signed into law by President Donald Trump.
In a widely circulated post on the platform X, Hegseth wrote: “The ‘Women, Peace & Security’ program is a UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops HATE it.” He pledged to do the “bare minimum” required by Congress and eventually eliminate the program.
However, the 2017 Women, Peace, and Security Act, passed with bipartisan support, was hailed at the time by the Trump administration as a landmark achievement. Trump himself signed it into law, and his daughter Ivanka Trump later promoted it as part of the administration’s global women’s empowerment agenda.
The WPS Act aimed to integrate women more fully into conflict prevention and resolution, particularly in regions where cultural barriers prevent male troops from engaging directly with local women. The concept originated with a U.N. Security Council resolution passed unanimously in 2000 and became U.S. law in a rare show of bipartisan unity.
“When we would go out into the field… female members would speak with those women and children who were on the objective, and they would help us to understand the human terrain in a new and novel way,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers this month. Trump has praised Caine in the past and nominated him for his current post.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who co-sponsored the Senate version of the WPS Act, called it “the first law passed by any country in the world focused on protecting women and promoting their participation in society.”
Hegseth’s attack also raised concerns on Capitol Hill, where Democratic lawmakers questioned his understanding of the initiative.
“That tweet contains some glaring inaccuracies that are far beneath the standard we should expect from the Department of Defense,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), reading the post aloud at a hearing.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) was more blunt: “Hegseth has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.”
Despite Hegseth’s criticism, the program was previously touted by Trump’s Cabinet and celebrated by Ivanka Trump, who helped launch a WPS training initiative for female police cadets in Colombia in 2019.
A spokesperson for Hegseth said there would be no further comment on his remarks. In a follow-up post, Hegseth clarified that he viewed the original intent of the program as “security-focused” but claimed it had been “distorted and weaponized” by the Biden administration.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric defended the WPS program, saying it had led to “a very clear, measurable and positive impact on the protection of civilians in conflict zones.”
