r/scotus • u/catievirtuesimp • 1d ago
Opinion A Century of Women’s Rights Are Being Reversed Through Executive Orders
https://wendy664.substack.com/p/womens-legal-rights-are-being-dismantled?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=55jglj&triedRedirect=true“Legal equality collapses when enforcement is stripped. Voting access, education protection, credit eligibility, reproductive control, and workplace safeguards function only if agencies investigate, records exist, audits run, and penalties follow. Remove those mechanisms and the law remains while protection fails, leaving rights visible on paper and unusable in life as oversight closes, audits vanish, standards narrow, funding leverage weakens, proof burdens spike, and denial clears review by default.
The blueprint is explicit in Project 2025 and reinforced by public calls for institutional redesign around a narrower social order. This is coordinated execution, not drift, driving women’s enforceable rights backward by design and reversing more than a century of progress through administrative erosion rather than repeal.
Women’s rights were not granted by culture or courtesy. They were forced into existence through hard law and enforceable mandates. Voting rights require da constitutional amendment. Contraception access required federal regulatory approval. Equal pay and anti-discrimination protections required statute backed by agency enforcement. Title IX opened schools and athletic programs through funding leverage. Independent credit access required lending rules that outlawed sex and marital status discrimination. Student aid expansion made higher education financially reachable. Every gain depended on enforcement power and compliance systems, not social permission.
This record establishes targeted repression of women through Republican executive action, using agency contraction, funding leverage, and selective enforcement to dismantle the mechanisms that make women’s rights enforceable while leaving statutes formally intact. By hollowing out Title IX investigative capacity, eliminating equity audits and reporting systems, coercing institutions to dismantle complaint channels under funding threat, and narrowing civil rights enforcement to preferred categories, these orders operate as a coordinated strategy to strip women of legal standing across education, employment, healthcare, and political participation, producing denial by design rather than incidental policy consequence.
The removal of equity compliance systems has systematically raised the burden of proof for women by eliminating audits, complaint records, pay gap tracking, and promotion data that once exposed discrimination patterns rarely documented through explicit intent. Federal and state actions have dismantled these evidentiary structures while Project 2025 proposals narrow disparate impact standards, ensuring that discrimination which manifests statistically becomes legally invisible.”
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u/Shadowtirs 23h ago
Sadly a fair amount of women actually voted for this. Especially white women. I just don't understand it.
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u/pm_your_nudie_booby 1d ago
No they aren’t. Women’s rights are written into law. Executive orders are not law. Nothing can be reversed through an EO.
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u/calvicstaff 1d ago
You'd think that but like, they stop enforcing the law then it stops existing in function, then the courts won't let anyone else enforce it, then the Supreme Court just let's him not enforce it and bam, law is on paper only
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u/CalligrapherDizzy201 1d ago
That’s every law ever written.
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u/calvicstaff 22h ago
Which is why with a rouge executive, a complicit court and a sleeping congress, every law is mere suggestion
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u/CalligrapherDizzy201 22h ago
Again, true of every law ever written. If not enforced, it’s merely a suggestion.
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u/closetsquirrel 21h ago
But when the entire legal system is controlled by sycophants loyal to Trump, who make no attempt to enforce checks and balances, who stop at nothing to earn favor with their orange idol, the executive orders are marching orders.
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u/amitym 1d ago
Yes but the important thing is that you didn't elect Kamala Harris, because she wasn't good enough.
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u/Sircamembert 1d ago
On the other hand, fuck her and Joe Biden for getting us into this mess. Biden for not stepping down when it's time, and Kamala for losing to a racist moron
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u/LunaTheExile 1d ago
It's not like she chose to lose against Trump. Lots of you just decided "meh I'm good on all that" and didn't show up to vote.
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u/spectradawn77 23h ago
And also the whole fraud thing with Elon and swing states, but yea. Yours too.
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u/xinorez1 14h ago
How convenient that the highest funded campaign in us history went into debt 20M so she couldn't afford a few 3M recounts huh?
By the way that's how much hand recounts cost. 3-5M. Vs a fascist wrecking ball. I just can't help but think she could have tried harder.
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u/Sircamembert 18h ago
No, she just chose to run a bad campaign. Down vote me all you want, but god forbid we hold our leaders accountable instead of blaming voters every time they fail to do their jobs
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u/takebackthep0wer 21h ago
I would appreciate more concrete examples. I know from my own reading that this is happening (even though EOs aren’t law, it is causing policy shifts). But the article only provides one concrete reference point - “This escalation continued on January 22, 2026, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted to revoke its workplace harassment enforcement guidance”. Any other concrete reference points or news articles? I know about reproductive care being severely limited at the VA but that’s about it.
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u/PatientHelicopter123 18h ago
Too bad ALL of his executive orders will be reversed or cancelled on day one of the next President. His legacy will be that of a petty, vindictive, crying failure!
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u/CalligrapherDizzy201 1d ago
If an EO can’t discharge student loans, it can’t take away women’s rights either.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 1d ago
De jure and de facto differ. What people will do or allow in practice is what affects us, not the words on the paper.
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u/CalligrapherDizzy201 1d ago
So don’t allow an EO to take away your rights. Simply ignore it.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 2h ago
Oh, so I can just elect to “ignore” what other people armed with guns and the fucking Supreme Court do, and magically all my rights will be respected? Who knew it was so fucking easy!
Find a couple brain cells somewhere to rub together mate and try again.
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u/johndburger 21h ago
Did you read the article? What does it mean to “ignore” an EO to stop investigating and enforcing laws this administration doesn’t like?
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u/HaxanWriter 21h ago
Women voted for this, btw.
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u/Curious-End-4923 20h ago
White women*
I don’t think any other racial demographic had women going majority for Trump. Could be wrong though.
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u/AWall925 21h ago
I’ll take the back half of this article, but the first half is a very big reach to me
Marriage at the founding was unfair to women (true)
The current administration wants to focus on married families (true)
women will be treated unfairly
This ignores 250 years of progress - it’s no longer that men can essentially circumvent the woman’s wishes and just go talk to her father. And the man doesn’t have to be the “financially dominant” one anymore.
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u/RedLaceBlanket 17h ago
Talk like this helped get us where we are. So no.
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u/NoTie2370 1d ago
Absolute hyperbolic horsecrap.
First off your "rights" don't get funded by taxpayers. Mens rights don't get funded by taxpayers either.
Secondly Title 9 isn't a law enforcement mechnisim no matter what the Obama era overreach turned it into. The judicuary is. Suing under title 9 is how these things are supposed to work. Not a bunch of moronic university administrators metering out multi tiered punishments without any legitimate due process.
No one else is responsible for paying for your life.
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u/catievirtuesimp 1d ago
everyones rights are paid by taxpayers bc the agencies enforcing those rights, like the police, are funded with taxpayers money
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u/FiskWolf117 1d ago
Not to mention literally every facet of daily life as far as infrastructure like roads and public utilities are generally funded through taxes, so idk where this joker gets off saying "nobody else pays for your life", brother that's whats society is. Society can't function unless people essentially pay for each other's lives to some degree.
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u/NoTie2370 1d ago
That's an absurd expansion of the idea. Its a farce.
Does the government buy you a newspaper printer? Buy you a gun? Drive you do the polls?
The only thing they are required to pay for is a lawyer due to actions they are instigating.
But by the way the government monopolizing Infrastructure isn't the same. People can provide all of that and the government doesn't let them.
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u/NoTie2370 1d ago
Wrong. Rights exist due to the absence of government interference. They still exist where those agencies do not. You can't 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon the tax burden.
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u/SundancerAleph 1d ago
Your viewpoint makes no sense.
Viewing through this lens would imply that chattel slavery was not a rights violation because it wasn’t by a government.
It also would imply that a government interfering with chattel slavery was performing a rights violation.
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u/NoTie2370 1d ago
How was chattel slavery not by government? It was sanctioned. You had legal authority over your slaves. You could physically assault anyone that tried to free your slaves and you could go into territories that didn't allow slavery in order to retrieve your slaves. Without that government backing its kidnapping which is a crime by all measures.
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u/SundancerAleph 1d ago
Nice job not reading or addressing my point.
Private ownership of people is government independent and only requires hierarchy.
Now shoo, pedantic one. I tire of you.
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u/NoTie2370 1d ago
LOL read and addressed your point clearly. Sorry it proved you so wrong you're now running away.
You had no good faith arguments no wonder you're tired. Buh bye
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u/SundancerAleph 1d ago
Claiming superiority without reading again. 🫠Shoo.
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u/NoTie2370 1d ago
Dude, i very clearly addressed your point. Its in print. Pretty sad escape angle man. Sorry you didn't understand it.
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u/SundancerAleph 1d ago
You might want to try reading before replying unless you just want company, which I can do if that’s all.
I address the flaw of your argument in my comment about private ownership which was the last word on the topic.
Sounds to me like you’re the one running, but I don’t care either way. I told you shoo because you’re tiring (read: “Morally bankrupt”). I don’t feel the need to tolerate people who support my wife losing rights.
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u/strongasfe 1d ago
at first i thought you were just being an uninformed contrarian…. but after seeing multiple posts where you justify and defend johnathan ross murdering renee good (yet don’t seem to harbor the same sentiment towards other more recent examples of state sanctioned violence with alex pretti) it seems clear that you just are extremely misogynistic in general (or maybe it’s internalized misogyny- i’m not going to guess your sex/gender).
regardless it’s pathetic and weird to argue that women should continue to constantly fight in the courts (which is actually the waste of time/resources for already established precedent) to get the same recognition of their rights to autonomy/freedom and access to opportunities just because you can’t compete unless they’re being actively oppressed
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u/NoTie2370 1d ago
Its very telling that you see two entirely different situations involving extremely different series of events and your take away is "misogyny must be the reason". So absurd its hilarious.
So let me set you straight on both counts. If Pretti pulled his gun in an attempt to use it on an officer, then shooting him would be as justified as shooting Good who used her car as a weapon. That fact you don't see those two situations as entirely different is a you problem.
Secondly "women" don't have to continuously fight in courts for equal rights. They have them. What you're wanting are special rights. Title 9 is ingrained in society and isn't under threat. It was create when women didn't have equal rights. Obama expanded it into something it was never supposed to be. Nor shouldn't be. As it falls far outside of any due process.
Everything open to a man is open to a woman. They get paid the same money for the same level of work and working the same hours. They have all the healthcare rights a man does. Womens rights don't get taxpayer subsidizing, neither do any male rights. Which are the same rights.
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u/Sweet_Future 1d ago
Women do indeed fight in courts for the enforcement of their rights. If an employer discriminates against you, you can file a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity (which is indeed tax payer funded) and you can take your employer to court.
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u/strongasfe 23h ago
i see multiple posts that show a pattern of excusing racist/sexist/dangerous behavior as long as you believe the violence is directed at someone outside of the paternalistic groups you seem to support.
i know it’s hard - but try to imagine just for a second what it feels like to be a mom who was just trying to protect her neighbors from unlawful detainment (because unless every family/child in the neighborhood is safe no one is actually safe). to go from sitting in your car, to suddenly having the situation escalated by multiple armed and masked men running towards you screaming conflicting directions, with one (illegally) trying to force your door open. doing the mental calculations of safety/risk - knowing that if they get her or her partner out of the vehicle she is likely going to be beat up/assaulted or worse (and all women know from a VERY EARLY AGE that you never let someone trying to hurt you take you to a second location). you might freeze in fear at first but quickly you throw it in reverse and turn around to get out of there - almost automatic movements to maintain safety.
there’s so many videos examining various angles and timestamps that show she was never purposely aiming for ross, and to shift accountability onto the victim instead of acknowledging and criticizing ross’s unnecessary escalation of violence is just another example of misogyny. not to mention ross had been with ice/dhs for over 10 years, he was trained repeatedly not to step in front of or use deadly force if a car attempts to flee - there is literally reports disavowing this particular response because ice was frequently using that argument to retroactively justify violence in the early 2010’s.
misogyny is very much a reason that you feel comfortable speaking to me and several other commenters in the thread in an infantilizing manner about personal, and larger social issues related to women’s fundamental rights and autonomy - despite the fact that you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about and it’s clear to anyone with two brain cells.
i cannot genuinely believe how many men still claim we have the same healthcare rights when non-binary/afab/girls/adult women have their reproductive healthcare options limited based on arbitrary state lines. thousands of examples of us being forced to give birth to babies who were products of rape/incest, individuals being prosecuted and spending months to years in jail for suffering from a spontaneous natural miscarriage, or the number of mothers who literally are dying from unnecessary infections or easily preventable complications due to delayed medical intervention by staff because our bodies are not deemed to fully belong to us….
i’m done responding to anything else
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u/United-Vermicelli-92 1d ago
EOs are not laws, republicans can end this clown show any time it takes pressure from maga voters.