Grace Panetta, The 19th

This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

President Donald Trump’s second Cabinet was never exceptionally diverse from the start. And in the past two months, three women have been fired or resigned.

The first to go, on March 5, was ex-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. Then, less than a month later, Trump ousted former Attorney General Pam Bondi. And on Monday, embattled Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced her resignation. ...

When Donald Trump was elected to the presidency in 2024 after being found liable for sexual abuse, his political victory set in motion another comeback — for director and producer Brett Ratner.

Ratner, who has directed films including the “Rush Hour” movies, “X-Men: The Last Stand” and “Tower Heist,” was all but cast out of Hollywood after being accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, whose allegations he denied, in 2017 at the height of the #MeToo movement.

Now, Ratner is back directing and producing with “Melania: 20 Days to History,” a documentary, premiering Thursday and in theaters Friday. Amazon MGM Studios paid an eye-popping $40 million for the rights to the film, which follows Melania Trump in the days and weeks leading up to the 2025 inauguration. ...

This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta and Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Grace and Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Reproductive health advocates are sounding the alarm over the case of a pregnant woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead months ago but must now stay on life support, according to her family, because of the state’s strict abortion ban law.

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse from the metro Atlanta area, experienced a medical emergency in February that involved blood clots in her brain. Smith, who was about nine weeks pregnant at the time, was declared legally dead, her mother, April Newkirk, told Atlanta TV station 11Alive Action News....

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Vice President Kamala Harris holds a three-point lead over former President Donald Trump, boosted by a wider advantage with women voters than he holds with men, according to a new 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll.

Ahead of their first and so far only scheduled presidential debate, the poll revealed that 44% of registered voters back Harris, the Democratic nominee, and 41% say they back Trump, the Republican. Meanwhile, 10% say they are undecided. ...

A Republican Party that has for decades alienated single women seems to have found its champion in JD Vance. A potentially bigger problem? Donald Trump’s pick of Vance as his running mate could cement the chasm between the GOP and unmarried women while also driving away married women, and even some married men, who lean Republican.

Since Trump put the Ohio senator on his presidential ticket, Vance’s past statements about “childless cat ladies” who are “miserable,” his opposition to no-fault divorce, his hostility to reproductive rights and his agreement with the belief that the “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female” is to raise their grandchildren are getting renewed attention.

Vance’s resurfaced comments draw on long-standing tropes about unmarried women and women without children. They have sparked mockery, but also ire. Experts say Vance’s rhetoric and policy proposals could exacerbate a gender gap that started to develop between the two major parties in the 1980s. And it’s a gap that already had the potential to become a gulf in the first White House contest after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization....