Erased: How This Administration Is Harming Women & Girls

You ever notice how some politicians claim to “support women,” but somehow the numbers — and the damage — always tell another story? You ever hear men say they “care about women” and then watch them slash funding for childcare, healthcare, and education — all while patting themselves on the back? 

In this episode, we confront the hypocrisy head-on, exposing how this administration’s actions are rolling back decades of progress for women and girls. From healthcare to pay equity to personal autonomy, we connect the dots between rhetoric and real-world harm — and what it means to live in a nation where policies dressed up as “pro-family” quietly erase women and girls. Because “family values” should never mean sacrificing women’s futures, yet here we are.

About your host:
Sonia in Cyber is a multicultural feminist voice, creative entrepreneur, and unapologetic truth-teller. With roots in education, tech, and product marketing, she blends data with empathy, humor with heartbreak, to expose the cracks in America’s “normal.” Through her podcast Somebody Pinch Me, she gives voice to the disillusioned, the outspoken, the overlooked, and the quietly furious — proving that truth doesn’t just survive in chaos; it thrives in it. Her mission is simple: to use her voice to inspire others to keep fighting, resisting, and moving forward — no matter what.

Transcript

@soniaincyber: 0:21

You ever hear someone say they support women and then watch them gut the agencies, programs, and protections that women and girls rely on? You ever feel like women's needs are invisible unless they're politically convenient? Yeah, me too. This is Somebody Pinch Me with Sonia in Cyber, and today, "Erased: How This Administration Is Harming Women and Girls".

@soniaincyber: 0:44

Let's start with the basics. Women make up over half the U.S. population. We're the majority of Medicaid recipients, we're the backbone of caregiving, we're the bulk of the part-time and service sector workforce. But under this administration, we're being erased, not with one single law, but with a thousand small cuts. Let's just say it out loud. This country is run by men who do not respect women. Not quietly, not behind closed doors, but openly, proudly, on microphones, at rallies, on national stages. These are men who brag about grabbing women without consent. Men who call their daughters hot. Who refer to women as nasty, too emotional, not attractive enough to assault. Men who laugh off rape accusations, joke about puberty, and rank women like they're on some twisted reality show. These are not fringe figures. These are our senators, governors, presidential frontrunners, and now administration. And it's not just the language, it's the policies. They strip our reproductive rights, they defund maternal care and child care, they slash protections against workplace harassment, they silence victims, prop up predators, and call it leadership. What we're witnessing isn't random. It's systemic misogyny with a podium and a budget. And it's cloaked in patriotism faith and family values. But make no mistake, this isn't about protecting women. It's about controlling us. They're not just disrespecting us with their words, they're dismantling us with their laws. These same men slashing access to abortion and contraception, they're also cutting funding for maternal health, cancer research, and domestic violence prevention. They crush efforts like the Gender Policy Council, the one federal body focused on equity for women and girls. They've gone after Medicaid and SNAP, knowing full well women, especially single moms and women of color, make up the majority of recipients. They've blocked paid leave, attacked equal pay protections, and undermined Title IX, all while pretending to be defenders of womanhood. They weaponized phrases like protect our daughters, then gut programs that would actually help our daughters survive, thrive, and be safe. And now they've even come after DEI programs, calling them divisive, when in reality, those are the policies that gave women, especially white women, a foothold in spaces we were never invited to before. This isn't about disagreement, it's about dehumanization. And if you think they'll stop with abortion, think again. They've already started coming after contraception, IVF, even divorce protections and marital right protections in some states. Because the goal isn't to protect life, it's to control the bodies that create it.

@soniaincyber: 3:44

And let's talk about our girls. Because what we normalize today, they'll be forced to navigate tomorrow. When men in power mock women, legislate our bodies, and treat our lives like political pawns, young girls are watching. They see what's allowed, they learn what's expected, and that damage, it doesn't wait until adulthood. It starts early. It starts when a girl learns her school won't teach her real sex education, but will punish her for what she wears. It starts when a 12-year-old hears lawmakers debate whether she should be forced to give birth if she's raped. It starts when a teenage girl is told to smile more, sit smaller, shrink herself, while the men who diminish her are praised for being strong leaders. And these laws, these attacks on abortion, contraception, maternal care, they're not just about women today. They're about erasing the freedom of the next generation before they ever get a chance to use it. Because when you control a girl's access to knowledge, when you police her body, her autonomy, her future, you don't just limit her choices, you limit who she believes she's allowed to become. This is how the trauma trickles down. This is how the silencing begins. And this is exactly what we have to stop right now.

@soniaincyber: 5:04

Let's dive a little deeper into a few of these topics. To start, workplace protections. In the first weeks in office, Trump fired the first female board member and female general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, rendering it powerless to do anything despite the critical role it plays in union representation for women that ensures higher wages and access to benefits. Crushed the EEOC by removing two female commissioners and the female general counsel, also rendering it powerless despite its critical role in recovering wages for those discriminated against based on gender, age, and religion, many being women, often in multiple categories. What does that mean? Women, especially women of color, have fewer avenues to fight wage theft, harassment, or retaliation, and that's by design. Next up, reproductive health. This administration has revoked executive orders protecting access to reproductive care, pushed gag rules that block funding, thrown out abortion, as mentioned already, attempted and then did dismantle the Gender Policy Council, which focused on healthcare, caregiving, and gender equity, the first of its kind established by the Biden administration. They say it's about life, but they cut Medicaid and SNAP too. More than 24 million women rely on Medicaid. More than half of the non-elderly SNAP recipients are women. So ask yourself, if it's about protecting life, why are they slashing the very programs that help people survive, that help women survive?

@soniaincyber: 6:35

Let's go deeper, the National Institute of Health. This administration cut funds to programs that disproportionately impact and help women, such as cancer research, endometriosis, menopause, long-term effects of pregnancy research, too. And I'll give you a personal example of the critical role research plays in saving and protecting women. It's this exact kind of research that ensured my mom is still here today after being diagnosed with stage 4B ovarian cancer last year, the number one gynecological related killer of women, many of which having no symptoms. At this time, there is no early detection test for this deadly cancer, but research has been making progress towards improving treatment outcomes and possible future ways to detect it sooner. This cancer is not only aggressive and typically only found at late stages, it also has a very high recurrence rate. In my mom's case, it's 90 to 100% likely to return, with her being over 65. And now young girls are being diagnosed with a two. The youngest I've heard of was 13. The thought that all cancer research that could continue to save my mom, that 13-year-old, and anyone else fighting this ugly disease might not be available anymore just because is not only heartbreaking, but also cruel, because it doesn't have to be that way. And these aren't women's issues, these are life and death issues, but research, funding, clinical trials, being quietly pushed off the table.

@soniaincyber: 8:13

Let's talk education. This administration has proposed elimination of funding for early learning and child nutrition programs, like Cuts to Head Start, which helps nearly one million children, many living in foster care with disabilities or experiencing homelessness, attacks on Title IX and DEI efforts in schools. And while they demonize wokeness, they gut the very access to education and advancement many women rely on to get closer to closing the gender wage gap.

@soniaincyber: 8:41

And what about safety? I think this is the one that gets me the most. They've stoked fear around bathroom policies and protecting girls while doing nothing about domestic violence shelters, housing assistance, protections for survivors in the workplace or on campus, and guns. The number one killer of pregnant women in the US right now is homicide, and most often with guns. They weaponize femininity as a wedge issue, but when women are actually in danger, silence. And here's the cultural kicker. This is a president who ridicules girls playing with dolls as if softness is weakness and compassion is a joke, as if being a girl is comical and certainly less serious or significant than being a man, whose tariff war disproportionately harms low-income families and women, who talks tough on crime while cutting the very social services that keep women safe, like housing, mental health care, domestic violence support, trauma recovery, who slashes funding for maternal health and then dares to call himself pro-life, who undermines Title IX protections while pretending to defend girls' sports and aggressively slashing public school funding and banning DEI programs that help girls have a better chance to thrive in a world of men as they fight for a seat at the table or equal pay once they get there every single day, who mocks survivors, rolls back campus assault protections, and empowers abusers with silence. Deny, deny, deny, who thinks banning abortion makes immoral, but banning assault rifles is going too far, and that celebrates and pardons J Sixers while launching the military and National Guard on peaceful protesters. This is a president who weaponized the word woke to distract from his war on equity, who surrounds himself with men accused credibly of abuse while having a long history of inappropriate behaviors with women and underage girls himself, who spent years fanning the flames of misogyny, platforming hate, and idolizing strong men who treat women like property, who makes exceptions for billionaires and criminals, but draws the line at women seeking autonomy.

@soniaincyber: 10:53

This isn't leadership. It's a rollback. It's a rejection of every hard-won gain in the last 50 years. None of this is accidental. It's an agenda, a quiet one, disguised as budgeting or efficiency or family values, but it's about power. It's about control. The more invisible women's unique needs become, the easier they are to erase entirely. It's ideological because if girls grow up empowered, questioning, confident, educated, they're harder to control.

@soniaincyber: 11:27

And we can't talk about this without naming one of the oldest tools used to keep women in their place, religious nationalism. More specifically, Christian nationalism, an ideology that says one religion, one gender, one version of family should define the laws of an entire country. It's not about faith, it's about power dressed up as morality. The kind that tells women our purpose is to serve, submit, and stay small. The kind that builds policy off of pulpits where our rights are seen as threats and our autonomy is framed as rebellion. Christian nationalism doesn't just push misogyny, it sanctifies it. It says women are vessels, not people. It tells girls they're sacred until they speak up, fight back, or say no. And then suddenly they're sinful, dangerous, disposable. This belief system has shaped the Supreme Court, state legislatures, school boards, and now it's shaping the bodies and futures of millions of women and girls, and not by accident. And if we don't call it out for what it is, political control wrapped in scripture, we're going to keep watching our rights vanish while they tell us it's holy.

@soniaincyber: 12:38

Now, before I wrap it up, I have to speak to the men that know something isn't right, but haven't quite accepted or acknowledged that. That feeling, that gut-turning doubt, it's trying to tell you something. I know you've been led to believe it's all just politics. You might even roll your eyes at feminists or equate feminism to man hater, or tell yourself it's not all men to sleep a little better at night, while wholeheartedly believing it's just about protecting girls or keeping tradition alive. You're not seeing it, at least not yet. You've been fed a version of manhood built on dominance, not dignity, on fear, not strength, on control, not character. You've been told that your power depends on our silence. But real power doesn't shrink other people to feel tall. It listens, it protects, it grows. And if you're a man who's confused, uncomfortable, or just now starting to question what you've believed, good. Sit with it. Let it challenge you, let it change you. Because this isn't just about what women are fighting against. It's about what we're trying to build: a world where your daughters, your partners, your students, your friends can exist fully and freely without having to earn their humanity in a court, in a hospital, or at a ballot box. You don't have to be the villain in this story. You can be the reason it changes.

@soniaincyber: 14:09

What's happening to women and girls in this country isn't random and it isn't righteous. It's a calculated effort to shrink us in law, in language, in leadership, and it's coming from the same mouths that claim to protect us while quietly building a system that punishes our power. But we see it and we name it and we fight it together, not just for ourselves, but for every girl watching, wondering if her voice will ever matter in a country like this. It will, because we're still here, louder, sharper, unrelenting. And we're not asking for a seat at the table anymore, we're flipping the damn table over. And maybe, hopefully, you'll decide to help. This was "Erased: How This Administration Is Harming Women and Girls".

@soniaincyber: 14:57

Remember, this isn't about party, it's about policy, it's about life, it's about doing what's right.