The Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives has significantly impacted corporate boardrooms across America. According to new data from 50/50 Women on Boards, women now occupy just shy of 3 in 10 company board seats in the nation's largest companies, down from 30.4% at the peak a year ago. Women of color have also lost ground, holding 7.3% of all board seats, down from 7.4% a year ago. The decline represents a reversal from the progress made during the historic pushback in 2020, when women business leaders made significant strides in corporate governance. Women were 22% of directors added to Russell 3000 boards in the first quarter, down from 30% in 2024 and about 40% in 2023. As Heather Spilsbury, CEO of 50/50 Women on Boards, told USA TODAY, 'Progress toward gender-balanced corporate boards is slowing and, in some areas, reversing'.
Renowned American economist Gita Gopinath has criticized the recent high-stakes summit between the United States and China, describing it as the 'end of meritocracy' in a post on X that has attracted over 33,000 likes overnight. According to reports from NDTV Profit, Gopinath specifically pointed to the blatant absence of women in a meeting between the world's largest economies, remarking that 'A painting of the end of meritocracy: A meeting of the two largest economies and not one woman at the table'. Speaking to The Guardian, Gopinath elaborated on her comments, stating 'We have somehow gravitated back to this idea that what matters is your network and not your capabilities – and that matters [in terms of] whether or not you get a seat at the table'. The commentary highlights the gender imbalance in decision-making positions within global economic diplomacy.
The gender imbalance was particularly stark in the American business delegation accompanying President Trump to Beijing. As reported by The New York Times, only two women are among the 17 major American business executives traveling with Trump - Jane Fraser, chief executive of Citigroup, and Dina Powell McCormick. The rest of the corporate delegation includes prominent male figures such as Elon Musk of Tesla, Tim Cook of Apple and Jensen Huang of Nvidia. The imbalance extended into the official US delegation, which included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, alongside other senior male advisers. Women in the US team largely occupied communications or support roles, including White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly, aide Natalie Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin and Lara Trump. Despite the absence of women at Thursday's bilateral meeting in the Great Hall of the People, a small handful of women did accompany Trump on his two-day visit to Beijing, including Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, as well as Jane Fraser and Dina Powell McCormick.
The gender imbalance was mirrored on the Chinese side, where few women were visible in official photographs. China's delegation included Foreign Minister Wang Yi and senior Communist Party official Cai Qi. According to The New York Times, China currently has no women among the 24 members of its Politburo, the Communist Party's top decision-making body. This reflects a pattern that has persisted over time, as Trump had also visited Beijing in 2017 with a similarly male-dominated business delegation, underlining how little has changed in the composition of elite economic diplomacy. Comparing Thursday's images to bilateral meetings during Barack Obama's presidency, Halima Kazem, associate director for Stanford University's program in feminist, gender and sexuality studies, noted that 'We've gone backward. Obama-era US-China summits included women at the table. Now neither superpower thinks women belong in the room where great power politics happens'.
The commentary has sparked significant discussion on social media platforms, with mixed reactions from users. According to NDTV Profit, some users defended the summit composition, stating 'This is exactly what a meritocracy looks like, actually' and 'That is why they are the two largest economies'. However, others criticized the gender imbalance, with one user noting 'The world's two largest economies deciding the future, and not a single woman at the table. Diversity at the highest levels isn't just optics- it's about broadening perspectives'. Kazem emphasized that 'This wasn't about lack of qualified women – both countries have plenty in their diplomatic and security establishments. This was a choice about what kind of authority to project: masculine, militarized, and exclusionary'. The debate highlights ongoing discussions about representation in high-level economic decision-making processes, while the broader implications extend to corporate governance where Equilar projected in 2025 that Russell 3000 boards will be half female by 2044, five years later than it projected in 2024.
The decline in boardroom diversity reflects a broader rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion policies across the corporate landscape. A federal appeals court blocked Nasdaq rules requiring thousands of public companies to have at least one woman, person of color or LGBTQ+ member on their boards, while Goldman Sachs ended its pledge to ensure diversity on boards of companies it helps take public. California rules to boost diversity were struck down, and proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services stopped considering corporate directors' gender, race or ethnicity when making voting recommendations. The world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, abandoned a 30% target for diverse directors at S&P 500 companies, while mutual fund giant Fidelity stopped threatening to vote against directors on boards that were not diverse. As Spilsbury noted, 'Fewer new board seats are being created and women are receiving a smaller share of those appointments than in prior years', with turnover on public company boards declining sharply from an average of 400 seats to closer to 200 in the first quarter.
