The Pentagon has announced plans to terminate a 75-year-old advisory committee serving female service members, citing a “divisive” and harmful agenda — days after a previous memo established plans for reactivating it.
A Sept. 17 memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and reviewed by Military Times directs the “formal disestablishment” of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.
“After further review, I have determined that the reinstatement of the Defense Advisory Committee for Women in the Services (DACOWITS) should not proceed,” Hegseth wrote in the memo, addressed to the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness and the director of administration and management. “The Department’s Advisory Committee Management Officer will terminate the DACOWITS in accordance with the requirements of [the Federal Advisory Committee Act]. In addition, the DACOWITS Sponsor will take appropriate action to realign resources associated with the DACOWITS, such as the reassignment of personnel, conclusion of contracts, and the archiving of DACOWITS’ records.”
A Sept. 8 memo also signed by Hegseth and reviewed by Military Times had directed the phased return to service of DACOWITS and 39 other advisory groups placed on hiatus, including the women’s advisory committee that an internal email had previously recommended for closure.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment about the move to keep the committee. But on Tuesday, officials provided a statement about Hegseth’s termination decision that called DACOWITS “divisive” and criticized its “agenda.”
“After further review, Secretary Hegseth has decided to terminate the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services,” Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said in the statement. “The Committee is focused on advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness, while Secretary Hegseth has focused on advancing uniform, sex-neutral standards across the Department.”
A senior staff member with the office of Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., a former Air Force officer who has advocated for DACOWITS and service-level groups supporting efforts to develop policies and equipment that account for women, said the office had submitted numerous questions to the Pentagon about the termination memo.
The agenda of the most recent public DACOWITS meeting, held in December 2024 before quarterly meetings were paused, addressed recruiting and service propensity statistics; flexibility and permeability for transfers between services; the integration status of women serving on submarines; data on eating disorders and physical fitness, issues regarding menopause, perimenopause and hormonal imbalances; and the reintegration to service of troops who’d given birth.
A 70-year report on the committee’s work, published in 2020, highlighted how more than 1,000 DACOWITS recommendations made since 1967 had informed Defense Department policy, with a 97% full or partial adoption rate as of 2019. Major themes since the 2010s, according to a data analysis, have been prevention of sexual assault and harassment, gender equality and integration, career progression and women’s health and wellbeing.
