Sex-Baiting and The New York Times Hysteria over Women in the Workplace

Just over two weeks ago, the New York Times published a guest essay by Joanne Lipman, “I’ve Covered Women in the Workplace for 15 Years. Something Alarming Is Happening.”

Covering employment and workplace issues for men and women is important at a time when Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is being undone—as Lipman essentially suggests. Lipman argues that the dismantling of D.E.I. initiatives undermine women’s opportunities in the workplace, and—in addition— there is the coded narrative that the Trump administration is the symbolic representation of these efforts as part of a larger and oppressive patriarchal structure.

The article, however, relies on a type of selective diversity and ignores critical facts when it comes to understanding the complexities of the workforce as well as unsupported claims that lesser D.E.I. means lesser equality. Lipman does not present counter narratives to the notion that D.E.I. initiatives discriminate against certain groups, often dismissing more qualified candidates for the purpose of equity over equality. Other D.E.I. initiatives may work against women or deter women from competing or making compelling life choices. (Men competing in women’s sports comes to mind.)

In the Trump administration, Arguments were being made about the military standards at the Department of Defense that would deter women from entering the military. Lipman goes on to argue that “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is purging the military of senior female officers after complaining that the armed forces had become effeminate.”

Ignored by Lipman are the number of white-male military officers retiring early—as they say— or being removed from positions.

• Gen. Randy George: The 41st Chief of Staff of the Army, forced to retire in April 2026.

• Gen. James Slife: Air Force Vice Chief of Staff.

• Gen. David M. Hodne: Fired from his role leading the Army’s Transformation and Training Command in April 2026.

• Gen. James J. Mingus (Army Vice Chief of Staff): Forced to step down and retire a year earlier than expected in late 2025.

• Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse (Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency): Fired as part of the string of dismissals under Hegseth’s tenure.

What Lipman fails to address is the role of the current administration to change policy as well as decrease the percentage of high ranking officials in the military overall, not as any slight against women or men but as a commitment to higher standards, equality under the law, and as a “broader government-wide campaign to slash spending and personnel across federal agencies.”

Lipman draws a false correlative by associating a change in policy to a type of discrimination, even though the data suggests otherwise and the current policy changes do not, in fact, discriminate.

Unreported by Lipman is the key fact that, in 2025, the military saw a surge in female recruitment. “In truth, Around 7,260 more women have enlisted so far this fiscal year than at this point last fiscal year: from 16,725 to 23,985,” according to a report by Fox News. That is a 43% increase.

While there may be some argument to be made that the military was seeing a slight increase in female military enlistment prior to 2025, the military was having a hard time meeting quotas prior to the 2025 surge and often taking recruits not up to the task.

The 2025 surge is one of the most compelling in fifteen years and Lipman makes no argument that policy changes at the Department of Defense may be a reason for the female surge in military recruitment. The warrior ethos, often touted by Defense Secretary Hegseth, may appeal to women who wanted to be judged by their abilities and not simply their sex classification. In other words, there is an argument to be made that equality, not equity, motivated women to join the military. Another consideration is the Department of Defense’s decision to assign female spaces based on sex (XX) and not gender, a social construct.

Also left out of the article is the number of mothers now choosing to be stay-at-home moms and its potential benefits. From 2022 to 2025, the percentage of stay-at-home moms has increased from 15% to 25%. Fifty percent “of Millennial and 52% of GenZ moms have considered leaving their jobs because the cost and related stress of childcare outweigh earnings,” according to Motherly.

Lipman goes on to argue that “women’s rights are eroding in the United States. The Trump administration has called for resurrecting “traditional” nuclear families in which the mother is a homemaker. JD Vance argued that having more women in the work force results in “unhappier, unhealthier children.” The administration recently sued a Coca-Cola distributor for hosting a women’s retreat, alleging it discriminated against men. Trump allies have even suggested stripping women of the right to vote.”

Ironically, Lipman’s fallacies rest on a number of assertions that women do not have the wherewithal to choose motherhood and parenting, the complete ignorance of the greater risk to children from single parent homes across all demographic groups, and the ridiculous argument that the government wants to strip women of their right to vote. Lipman ignores, conveniently, the appointment of Susie Wiles as the first female Chief-of-Staff in U.S. history.

And the Coca-Cola claim was not about a “women’s retreat” it was about a violation of equal protections. The lawsuit was brought forward by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Coca-Cola Northeast privately invited female employees and then excused the female employees who attended the event from their normal work duties on Sept. 10 and 11, 2024, and paid them their normal salary or wages without requiring them to use vacation or other paid time off. Coca-Cola Northeast did not invite any male employees to the event.

“Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has long made the exclusion of one protected class of employees from an employer-sponsored event a violation of the law,” said Catherine L. Eschbach, acting EEOC general counsel. “Excluding men from an employer-sponsored event is a Title VII violation that the EEOC will act to remedy through litigation when necessary. The EEOC remains committed to ensuring that all employees – men and women alike – enjoy equal access to all aspects of their employment, including participation in employer-sponsored events, regardless of their sex, race or other protected category.”

This alleged conduct violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from making employment decisions motivated by sex. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, Inc., Case No. 1:26-cv-00115) in U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

Lipman’s laundry list of fallacies do not hold up in other areas as well. According to one NPR report by Andrea Hsu, “Women are getting most of the new jobs. What’s going on with men?”

Of the 369,000 jobs the Labor Department says were created since the start of Trump’s second term, nearly all — 348,000 of them — went to women, with only 21,000 going to men. That’s nearly 17 times as many jobs filled by women as by men.

The lopsidedness was driven by huge growth in health care, where women hold nearly 80% of jobs. Over the past 12 months, health care alone added 390,000 jobs, more than in the economy overall, making up for job losses elsewhere.

Of the 369,000 jobs the Labor Department says were created since the start of Trump’s second term, nearly all — 348,000 of them — went to women, with only 21,000 going to men.

Data from the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor suggest no real difference across multiple age groups in the share of men and share of women in the civilian non-institutional workforce by age and sex. Looking more deeply into the number of civilian non-institutional population, 47.3 percent were women and 52.7 percent were men in 2023 and 2024 across all age groups.

If one considers the number of stay-at-home moms, social security beneficiaries, and a host of other factors, these numbers will essentially vanish.

Also noted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “employed fathers remained more likely to work full time than employed mothers in 2024—95 percent compared with 79 percent. Among employed mothers, those with older children remained more likely to work full time than those with younger children. In 2024, 81 percent of employed mothers with children ages 6 to 17 worked full time compared with 76 percent of mothers with children under age 6. However, employed fathers of older children and those with younger children were equally likely to work full time (95 percent).”

Source: Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor

It should be noted that the U.S. Department of Labor does not have a Men’s Bureau in the Department of Labor. Although the Women’s Bureau still exists, the current administration has suggested it is a relic of the past. The Department of Labor already disaggregates data by sex, so a separate agency within the Department of Labor that focuses solely on the employment of one sex classification seems like a clear violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The Women's Bureau was established in the U.S. Department of Labor by Public Law No. 259 of June 5, 1920. The law gave the Bureau the duty to “formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment.” It also gave the Bureau the authority to investigate and report to the U.S. Department of Labor upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of women in industry. It is the only federal agency mandated to represent the needs of wage-earning women in the public policy process. Learn more about the Women's Bureau's history (bold my emphasis).

One would think that formulating standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women and men, improving their working conditions, increasing their efficiency, and advancing their opportunities for profitable employment” would be the goal for all, and not just one demographic group (bold text my edition).

Among unmarried adults, women without children have as much wealth as single men, according to the Pew Research Center.

In the past year, women have outpaced men in the workforce and that does not account for—as mentioned earlier—the number of women who choose to be stay-at-home moms and the greater number of elderly retired women who outlive their husbands and are drawing from retirement and social security in greater numbers. These types of factors need to be taken into consideration when looking at the overall landscape of life, living, and work for all parties.

Of course, these discussions are more complicated but one does not get that sense at all from Lipman’s piece.

Selective diversity is the foundation of Lipman’s article, and its framework is built on the type of histrionic narratives familiar in the age of sex-baiting. By sex-baiting, I’m referring to the intentional use of language by academia, media, and government to create false stereotypes regarding sex (gender) for the purpose of inciting fear and ascribing prejudice to control the social and political narratives and the policies that follow.

There is no evidence to suggest that “women’s rights are eroding,” but there is still agency at the New York Times to promote these types of trumped-up narratives, often at the expense of men, women, and families.